Walking Wounded

Saturday, December 25, 2010

The Strongest Predictor For Low Stress

Research from wild baboons provides insight into perhaps the best way to combat daily, psychological stress. During this holiday season it might bring some comfort. Christie Nicholson reports
Stress is crucial for survival. Zebra sees a lion, stress makes her run. But we modern humans get stressed mostly for psychological reasons. Which are much more constant and lingering than a run in with a lion. Work, lifestyle, family, even Christmas.
What makes stress dangerous is the glucocortocoid hormones that our body releases. Elevated levels of such hormones leads to diabetes, hypertension, decreased testosterone, memory loss, suppressed immune system.
Robert Sapolsky, Professor of Neurology at Stanford University, has been studying stress in wild baboons for more than three decades.   And he found there are two powerful predictors of who will be most affected by stress. Personality plays a huge role. Can you tell the difference between a big threat and minor issue? If it is big can you figure out a way to get some control over it? If there’s a bad outcome do you have a coping mechanism?   If you can answer yes to these it’s a good bet you’ve got relatively low stress.
Beyond personality traits, the single best predictor of an ability to deal well with   stress is how socially connected you are. Baboons who had strong relationships also had low glucocorticoid levels and outlived the more isolated baboons by about three years.
So this Christmas holiday, rejoice in your interconnections, your friends and family. It’s a good thing for your heart and health.
—Christie Nicholson

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Tattered Pieces~ Mended Minds~Changed Lives


This is a twelve week lesson plan that I developed to help others

My name is Donetta.
I am not a professional counselor. 
I walked through seven years (and then some) of intensive family of origin based recovery. Addressing all forms of childhood abuse. Living under a parental curse seven generations. Some how getting freed from it.  These are some of the things that helped me in the restoration of my soul/mind/body.  The Lord has walked with me all of my days He knew me and kept me.Although Gods presence was with me I only came to begin to know and understand who He is on my twentieth birthday in 1981.<>john 3:16<>


Do you struggle with a lie over your head?  “ You’ll never amount to anything…loser…no one will ever love you. ”
Are the effects of your youth stopping you from uncovering what you long to be?<>
Do you ask your self “ why am I this way?<> 
Do you find yourself saying “ How could I (they) be so stupid”!
Do you share with Paul when you read I do the things I don’t want to do and don’t’ do the things I want to do. Who can save me?  Praise be to God who... <>

Synopsis
Together learning some tools to help ourselves in the process of becoming new  

Lesson One~
Why?
Why am I?
Why are they?
What made us this way?
It's No Wonder.

Lesson Two
Choice and Consequences
Under the will of others
The triad of Rescuer/victim/offender
Free Choice

Lesson Three
Where?
Where was God?
Salvation free choice
Repentance and restoration

Lesson Four
The Lie
Uncovering the lie
How it got there


Lesson five 
Discover the truth
Who you are in Christ
Replace the lie

Lesson Six
The gates of your mind
Understanding
education
training up a child
practice

Lesson Seven
Feelings
A gift from God
Appropriate/Inappropriate
Manipulation verses Direct meeting of needs

Lesson Eight
Rage triad
Identifying the components of rage
Silent rage
Fight Flight
What do we do when others rage at us

Lesson Nine
Triad of sin
Stepping of of it
Our responsibility


Lesson 10
Becoming New verses the curse
Boundaries
Character training
Re-parenting
Affirmations

Lesson 11
Risk verses blind trust
Learning to trust God
Learning to build trust with others

Lesson 12
A pure Heart
Clean hands
Seeing myself through eyes of love
Seeing others through eyes of love

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Thinking it through

So think on these things...

Thankful for...
Love
loving
being loved
my best friend being my husband
my childrn being beautiful and wonderful to raise
friends who remain even in my absence
success of others
flowers in the garden
veggies germinating in the earth
Mercy and favor from God
Hair on my neck
light in my eyes
ring on my finger
roof overhead
food to feed us
grass to grow
a day off for the children
tools like this to refocus
tanacity to toward boundries
skills to hone
talents to offer
a home of my own
home to offer a santuary to those I love
that finger nails grow back

a cord of three strands not easily broken
ivig to save my bones for this lifetime
gentleness from my darling mate
computer to type on
grief that is healing
The memories of my sweet sister how in her dieing of such a rare thing I am given the gift of extended life.
She was the woman who three years into my recovery came forward asking forgiveness. She said that the things I remembered were true when all of the others denial all but drove me to suicide, she saved my sanity too.

I miss my sister she knew how to commiserate without correction or council just an empathetic ear. I had that joint friendship this week with a wonderful woman my very most intimate friend and it really refreshed my soul.

I think I am real sad, thankful for the gift of sorrow is healing.
I think I am angry and the gift of that anger is power.
I am much more powerful these last months
I am thankful for that.

It has been hard for me to hold fast to who I am and not let another rob it from me.
It feels as if sometimes I am bought. I do not like it! It feels like the old rescue/abusive/victim triangle thing. I am not willing to remain in this tangle this snag. If it were a bad friendship I would remove myself. In this with the details it is not the wise way to go. Too caring of this other to preserve myself.
How you can want something so much yet reality is that it is not different than how it is.

I am vulnerable with my sisters loss. Others remain removed and I am so trying to support, love and give opportunity to a soul to become new. Reality is that accepting others as they are will have a profound effect on how it effects us. Wisdom at times is to bite tongue and love through it. It is life sucking however.
I just treasure a hold on this little life left that I have fought so hard for.
I beome a fog, as it it were as I wished it were, the relationship. It is a madness for it is still yet the same as old for the ingrained triad is so hard to challenge with the love that it takes. With the courage that it takes
For if it is challenged the rescuer then becomes victim martyr. It is so infuriating!

I am thankful that it is for all of this that I endure.
yee haw here comes the holiday season.
I wish it were just the four of us. So much so, no other issues to master.
Kindness is a rule of this old heart that feels so worn of practicing it.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

It is finished

"when will you know that you have given yourself a life?" she asked me .
This after telling her that it was my childhood goal to tell on them, to testify against the hidden things done in darkness. If I did not let them make me like them, I would give myself a life on day "i promised" this to my own soul.

After so many many years it has come the time. I see that it is time to accept that I have reached that goal.

When given the medication to stop the effects of the cortisol flush. That PTSD flight/fight response my psychiatrist told me that I should really consider if I ought to subject myself to any more EMDR. My very physical health was made at risk by keeping the stress hormone activated in the process of identifying the triggers to rid myself of the effect of them. It made me think long and hard about when I would stop and simply accept that there will be times when others would simply need to respect my boundries. That I will need to simply accept my limitations stemming from the PTSD triggers. To accept that I have given myself a life, and this is now time to be free to live it.

This only after many many years of a lot of really hard work. 
It is finished. My goal has been attained.
I am tired. It is finished.
Now I live.

I think I now know that I have given myself that life fought for. In the spring I will turn 50 years of age. I have fought for many years gaining back the life stolen from me to the best of my tenacious ability.

It is that now that I see that I have taken my power back!
I have my life gained! 
No longer to fight for anything grater than that I have so successfully attained. The world around me is just that. It can not be altered or changed. I can support those who walk this long road by declaring that Yes this will one day be finished

Many of you know my stand or jurney through the seasons of old when concerning this upcoming holiday.
For many many years my stand, my battle to tell the truth. Sound the bell, shout from the high places to pray for the children during the upcoming days. It has left my mind tormented with the memories of those days pass. Now no longer is it my bell to ring.

Now I let this to you. It will be no longer for me to be the clanging sound of arise and pray for the inocent who are harmed.
It is a season to pass that mantle on.
To you who understand this
Others must take that task so that I can no longer think on these things in order to attain the goal that is MY LIFE
That battle is not to flood my mind any longer.
I have told the truth, I have rung the bell now I pass that bell along to you who's duty it is to do so.

This will be the first year that I will no longer focus on the horror of this time of year.
I will rather be focusing on the pure and raise my family aware that we all can overcome.
I will example to all that I have overcome the world, the evil and naked violence that would remove the innocent as well as the vile.
I will celibrate the innocent and leave the vile to it's own devices.
I will yet pray and then let go for it is no longer for me to intercede when it takes me back to the very events that I fear happening to other children.

It is up to you and others who are able to pray without the effects of personal experience.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Denile, Stopping up your ears



"It really never happened".
Halloween is just pure simple kids fun, a chance for innocence and community affiliation. There is nothing wrong with it. It's all good.

This is a hard thing to put into practice. I hate Halloween!

We who have know horror have to hold our fingers in our ears, but when my fingers get tired...
When I get tired of the ghouls when trying my best to allow my kids the opportunity to witness what trick or treating means... When the folks scream...I am doing my best to manage the PTSD.

There are always ear plug...     :)               Hearos Ultimate Softness, 20-Pair Foam (Pack of 2)
Click on image

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Stress

Stress. Stress initiates the release of a variety of hormones that make your pulse race and cause your blood pressure to rise. The hormone cortisol, released to lessen these effects, also creates problems when it remains chronically elevated. Try practicing relaxation techniques to help manage stress, and get enough sleep every night. 

I read an article in a health publication this morning. So alright it is true yep the effects are real.

So kids do this...address the cortisol NOW

Lamictal is a very useful tool or medication. It took a good 30 years for anyone to offer anything to help this cortisol flush to stop. This medication really has changed my daily life. That flush of cortisol made me someone else it left me an angry reactor, the shaking of frustration left me exposed to blowups and in-congruent responses. Embarrassed low self esteem and so on.

TEND TO IT
This does not have to be left to it's devices. The inflammation caused to our body is lasting so stop and tend to it.
You Matter

I often use essence oils like this one
Stress Relief Synergy Blend Essential Oil- 30 ml (Bergamot, Patchouli, Blood Orange, Ylang Ylang & Grapefruit)
click on image

Monday, August 16, 2010

The effects of P.T.S.D. and disassociation

Fight / Flight
Hyper diligence ingrained into the very synapse of the physical tissue of the brain. Trained to focus constantly so constantly that over years it is not even a conscience event.  So that most of the focus of every moment of life is taken up in it. There is a very little percentage left to take in anything else. Then, after years of missing out on all the things going on around me, all the joys and people they disappear. In the fog of those very moments taken away being distracted on keeping safe and creating safety for those around me. I have been so riddled by the Flight/fight defense system ingrained in my brain that not even reason by this highly intelligent woman could will herself out of it. The height of this intelligence and tenacity got me into a safe life and kept me here. But even after 25 years the brain my brain is so hard wired to pursue safety at all cost it has even cost me my very ability to remember the special events with my kids, the names and faces of my friends and the relationships that I could not even relax enough in to remember who they were. Or what our relationship was. Very few folks have I been safe enough that relaxed friendships could occur and remain.

So the solve appears to be intentionally re-wirer'ed. See I thought I had done this but what had been done was actually really 'becoming safe'. Now I need to make my brain hard wire on the fact that I am safe and it can stop. By verbalizing my feelings of every moment into to the pleasures I am experiencing this will be a big start.
So now I have to convince the wiring of my brain to stand down. Physically it must now get intentional focused attention to speak out pleasure experience every moment and how it feels out loud. My Psychiatrist said that the medication itself can cause a slowing of cognitive function. The Disassociation is  actually the flight fight constantly being a sentential relentlessly stopping me from enjoying any given moment. The memory is not created because the synapse are to busy with looking out for danger are possible problems. Literally the ruts in the physical organic brain are stopping the new neuron pathways from forming. Now just like building muscle I have to force the new synapses to form associating feelings to experiences to create memory.
I forgot the appointment I had a week ago. It was a 3 month medication check. I got a bill for the no show. Called today after I got home with the good news from the neurologist. The secretary calls me back she wanted to know if 4:30 might work she had had a cancellation. 
Pretty obvious who orchestrated that.
By the way he gave me grace on the debt and erased it.

So the neurologist wants me to start back up the EDMR, I told the psychiatrist (he is renowned for his work with veterans he handles medications as an MD)  and he warned me to speak to the physiologist about it (p.t.s.d. is her specialty she rewires the brain to stop flash backs). To use care that it not provoke more of the Fight / Flight unconscious response apparently it will be a very fine balance.
The EMDR is to remove the stimulus causing the flight /fight at the same time I must also put huge focus on intentional verbal recognition of experiences at the moment of events identifying pleasurable experiences giving them a feeling name.
So if you already have made it this far in your recovery I applaud you. If your yet on the path and stumbling along I reach out this hand to you.
May this information be a hands up to somebody.
Yes the point is that God does have a purpose in all of this.

Get this the psychiatrist said "(the above) and to Expect and look for miracles". Reminding me that all along many of the things he has witnessed in my life over the years have killed many other of his patients yet I am making it through it all by the faith and grace of God. Cool that he sees it, even cooler that he actually acknowledged it.

My intellect is always unconsciously focused all around me for any dangers to myself or my loved ones . Now I must force this intellect to serve me in another way. Healer heal thy self.

Dissociative Disorder

For the last 25+ years everything I have been able to do to address the P.T.S.D. and dissociative disorder is apparently only a partial cure. Unless a side effect of the anti depressant is causing amnesia it could be that the DD is causing it. 
Today I had wonderful news, aside from the migraine (white spots in my gray matter of the brain) the memory may be DD yet effected by the P.T.S.D.
I am very happy to know that longevity is on my side verses early onset dementia (the threat I have been under for a few years now). I am also discouraged because I thought that after all this time I was on the other side of my youth. I hate that ~ reads this for I have lost the ability to write unabashed well I am going to speak no matter the risk of loss of familiar respect. I can not let that stop my purpose here. I have now for a few years. Every sense ~ became a follower. It is often reported to others who would rather ridicule me and silence my reality. It makes me angry that I have become so passive to it. I felt like guarding pearls. I hated to get trampled on. So I removed myself from myself to protect myself. Stupid ...yes but no less understandable.  
I will discuss the drugs for the depression and the one for the cortisol stress response  this afternoon with the prescribing psychiatrist . Perhaps some of this is a side effect. These issues were going on back before the medications.
When a child is tortured it last a life time. A very very long life time. So many many of those along my way have taken their own life. I can understand it. Though it should never be an option. This is not an option for me. Never has been and now as a parent it can never be. For I could never be so selfish to do so. Oh man do I understand the discouragement though. It leaves an inappropriate shame. One that is not mine for I have done nothing intentionally to cause this wake. In fact everything I can to change it. Perhaps there is more I can do. 
I turn 50 next year when when is it over. Sometimes I think it would of been better if bill and his crony would of just killed me. I fought so hard to live to tell on them. In my ear rings the "God had a purpose in me surviving" ya...well the circle of denial in my family is suffocating! I am trying to find relationships but the dissociative stuff still robs me of a 'normal' life, to the effect that it looked like dementia with the memory loss in day to day. The P.T.S.D. still brings on the D.I.D. whether I notice it doing it or not. Maybe it is an effect of the drugs in combination. I tell ya though this has gotten real old. Ignoring it is just something I wish I could do. I have come so so far from life in a closet terrified not knowing how I got there. 
The damage to my body from the stress. The physical from the abuse...now the Common Immunodeficiency  to endure that may or may not be genetic. It may even have been from the years of P.T.S.D..  Stress destroys the body!
I understand how it seems more merciful if they kill us...for they take a normal life away from us. 
Gee I wonder why we get depressed, so we can live life out though a bottle of antidepressants. Makes me so angry at abusers and parents who neglect the kids in their charge.  Parents who torment their own kids with crap left undone in their own youth.Then others have to step in at the cost of a normal life for themselves. Now that just makes us really feel wonderful about ourselves. sarcasm

So I say table when I want to ask for a drink, or forget what we did as a family last week, month. Don't even remember my friends, or that they were even out there wondering what ever happened to me...it is not organic my physical body will not leave them caring for me in later years as a dementia patient. That is good news. 
I just feel like crying. 
No ~. I don't give a **** if you call ~. and gossip all about it. All of that is full of bitter denial and selfish contempt that's their stuff. If ~. or anyone else for that matter, wants a relationship... all of me or nothing . Non of your business ~. Unless you are for me you are against me. 
Know that I was always for you ~.

Introduction
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) (known in the past as Multiple Personality Disorder-MPD) and other Dissociative Disorders are now understood to be fairly common effects of severe trauma in early childhood. The most common cause is extreme, repeated physical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse.

There is a great deal of overlap of symptoms and experiences among the several Dissociative Disorders, including DID. Some people who may not qualify for a specific diagnosis may, nevertheless, have problems with dissociation. For ease of reading, we use “Dissociative Disorders” as a general term for all of the diagnoses. Individuals should seek help from qualified mental health providers to answer questions about their own particular circumstances and diagnoses.

Q: Is DID the same as MPD?
n 1994, the American Psychiatric Association’s manual that classifies and describes all psychiatric diagnoses changed the name from Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) to Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). They felt this better reflected the current professional understanding of the disorder, based on significant recent research.

Q: What Does Trauma Have to Do with DID?
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a trauma-related mental illness affecting 8% of Americans. PTSD is closely related to Dissociative Disorders. In fact, most people with a Dissociative Disorder also have PTSD. The cost of trauma disorders is extremely high to individuals, families, and society. Recent research suggests that people with trauma disorders may attempt suicide more often than people who have major depression. Research also shows that people with trauma disorders have more serious medical illnesses, substance use, and self-harming behaviors.

Q: What Is Dissociation?
Dissociation is a disconnection between a person's thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of who he or she is. This is a normal process that everyone has experienced. Examples of mild, common dissociation include daydreaming, highway hypnosis, or "getting lost" in a book or movie, all of which involve "losing touch" with awareness of one's immediate surroundings.

Q: When Is Dissociation Helpful?
During a traumatic experience such as an accident, disaster, or crime victimization, dissociation can help a person tolerate what might otherwise be too difficult to bear. In situations like these, a person may dissociate the memory of the place, circumstances, or feelings about of the overwhelming event, mentally escaping from the fear, pain, and horror. This may make it difficult to later remember the details of the experience, as reported by many disaster and accident survivors.

Q: What is a Dissociative Disorder?
Tragically, ongoing traumatic conditions such as abuse, community violence, war, or painful medical procedures are not one-time events.  For people repeatedly exposed to these experiences, especially in childhood, dissociation is an extremely effective coping “skill.” However, it can become a double-edged sword. It can protect them from awareness of the pain in the short-run, but a person who dissociates often may find in the long-run his or her sense of personal history and identity is affected. For some people, dissociation is so frequent it results in serious pathology, relationship difficulties, and inability to function, especially when under stress.

Q: Who Gets Dissociative Disorders?
As many as 99% of people who develop Dissociative Disorders have documented histories of repetitive, overwhelming, and often life-threatening trauma at a sensitive developmental stage of childhood (usually before the age of nine). They may also have inherited a biological predisposition for dissociation. In our culture, the most frequent cause of Dissociative Disorders is extreme physical, emotional, and sexual abuse in childhood. Survivors of other kinds of childhood trauma (such as natural disasters, invasive medical procedures, war, kidnapping, and torture) have also reacted by developing Dissociative Disorders.

Q: Is DID a Major Mental Health Problem?

Current research shows that DID may affect 1% of the general population and as many as 5-20% of people in psychiatric hospitals. The rates are even higher among sexual-abuse survivors and addicts. These statistics put Dissociative Disorders in the same category as schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety, as one of the four major mental health problems today.

Q: Does DID Affect Both Women and Men?
Most current literature shows that Dissociative Disorders are recognized primarily among women. The latest research, however, indicates that the disorders may be equally prevalent (but less frequently diagnosed) among men. Men with Dissociative Disorders are most likely to be in treatment for other mental illnesses or drug and alcohol abuse, or they may be incarcerated.

Q: How Does a Dissociative Disorder Develop?
When faced with an overwhelming situation from which there is no physical escape, a child may learn to "go away" in his or her head. Children typically use this ability as a defense against physical and emotional pain, or fear of that pain. By dissociating, thoughts, feelings, memories, and perceptions of the trauma can be separated off in the mind.  This allows the child to function normally. This often happens when no parent or trusted adult is available to stop the hurt, soothe, and care for the child at the time of traumatic crisis. The parent/caregiver may be the source of the trauma, may neglect the child’s needs, may be a co-victim, or may be unaware of the situation.

Q: How Do Dissociative Disorders Help People Survive?

Dissociative Disorders are often called a self-protection or survival technique because they allow individuals to endure "hopeless" circumstances and preserve some healthy functioning. For a child who has been repeatedly physically and sexually assaulted, however, dissociation becomes a reinforced and conditioned defense.

Q: If It’s a Survival Technique, What’s the Down Side?

Because it is so effective, children who are very practiced at dissociating may automatically use it whenever they feel threatened--even if the anxiety-producing situation is not extreme or abusive. Even after the traumatic circumstances are long past, the left-over pattern of defensive dissociation sometimes remains into adulthood. Habitual defensive dissociation may lead to serious dysfunction in school, work, social, and daily activities.

Q: How Do the Identities of DID Develop?
Until about the age of eight or nine years, children are developmentally primed for fantasy play, such as when they create and interact with imaginary “friends.” When under extreme stress, young children may call on this special ability to develop a “character” or “role” into which they can escape when feeling threatened. One therapist described this as nothing more than a little girl imagining herself on a swing in the sunshine instead of at the hands of her abuser. Repeated dissociation can result in a series of separate entities, or mental states, which may eventually take on identities of their own. These entities can become the internal "personality states" of DID. Changing between these states of consciousness is often described as "switching."

Q: Do People Actually Have “Multiple Personalities”?
Yes, and no. One of the reasons for the decision to change the disorder's name from MPD to DID is that "multiple personalities" is a misleading term. A person with DID feels as if she has within her two or more entities, each with its own way of thinking and remembering about herself and her life. These entities previously were often called "personalities," even though the term did not accurately reflect the common definition of the word. Other terms often used by therapists and survivors to describe these entities are: "alternate personalities," "alters," "parts," "states of consciousness," "ego states," and "identities." It is important to keep in mind that although these alternate states may feel or appear to be very different, they are all manifestations of a single, whole person.

Q: Is it Obvious when a Person Switches Personalities?
Unlike popular portrayals of dissociation in books and movies, most people with Dissociative Disorders work hard to hide their dissociation. They can often function so well, especially under controlled circumstances, that family members, coworkers, neighbors, and others with whom they interact daily may not know that they are chronically dissociative.  People with Dissociative Disorders can hold highly responsible jobs, contributing to society in a variety of professions, the arts, and public service.

Q:  What Are the Symptoms of a Dissociative Disorder?
People with Dissociative Disorders may experience any of the following: depression, mood swings, suicidal thoughts or attempts, sleep disorders (insomnia, night terrors, and sleep walking), panic attacks and phobias (flashbacks, reactions to reminders of the trauma), alcohol and drug abuse, compulsions and rituals, psychotic-like symptoms, and eating disorders. In addition, individuals can experience headaches, amnesias, time loss, trances, and "out-of-body experiences." Some people with Dissociative Disorders have a tendency toward self-persecution, self-sabotage, and even violence (both self-inflicted and outwardly directed).

Q: Why Are Dissociative Disorders Often Misdiagnosed?

Dissociative Disorders survivors often spend years living with the wrong diagnosis. They change from therapist to therapist and from medication to medication, getting treatment for symptoms but making little or no actual progress. Research shows that people with Dissociative Disorders spend an average of seven years in the mental health system before getting the correct diagnosis. This is common because the symptoms that drive a person with a Dissociative Disorder to treatment are very similar to those of many other psychiatric diagnoses.

Q: What Are Some Common Misdiagnoses?
Common misdiagnoses include attention deficit disorder (especially among children), because of difficulties in concentration and memory; bipolar disorder, because “switching” can look like rapid-cycling mood swings; schizophrenia or psychoses, because flashbacks can cause auditory and visual hallucinations; and addictions, because alcohol and drugs are frequently used to self medicate or to numb the psychic pain.

Q: What Other Mental Health Problems Are People with DID Likely to Have?
In addition, people with Dissociative Disorders can have other diagnosable mental health problems at the same time. Typically these include depression, post traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks, obsessive compulsive symptoms, phobias, and self-harming behavior such as cutting, eating disorders, and high-risk sexual behaviors. Although they may get expert treatment for the more common secondary issue, if the dissociative disorder is not addressed, recovery is generally short lived.

I have spent so many stinking years addressing it!

Q: Can Dissociative Disorders Be Cured? 

Yes. Dissociative Disorders respond well to individual psychotherapy, or "talk therapy," and to a range of other treatment modalities, including medications, hypnotherapy, and art or movement therapy. In fact, compared to other severe psychiatric disorders, Dissociative Disorders may carry the best prognosis, if proper treatment is undertaken and completed. The course of treatment is long-term, intensive, and painful, as it generally involves remembering and reclaiming the dissociated traumatic experiences. Ultimately, the “alters” or “parts” can merge into a single whole “personality,” reclaiming the awareness, identity, and history previously held by the individual parts. Individuals with Dissociative Disorders have been successfully treated by therapists of all professional backgrounds, generally with special training, working in a variety of settings.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

R.A.D.ical responce to life

My son has Anger/loss insomnia three nights now The RAD stuff hitting him hard. With school getting ready to start and all he is just a bit insecure like WAY! I awoke at 6 am to check on him and I searched the house yards in a PANIC could not find him. He heard the front door close and came out of our bedroom where he was on the floor beside my husband. He had had a bad dream. It is always VERY had on him to separate from home. The kid does not even like to travel. He just wants his home.
So sleepy mom to comfort. So like that image in the descriptions of RAD , is chattering nonsense NONSTOP! for at least 2 hours before he began to calm. sweet baby. My thoughts are to introduce some of this to the kids like a "it's no wonder, It is just a part of how you have coped. Your learning now to function differently. Soon you just won't be coping any more you'll be thriving!"
I would walk out of the room breath deep then think how it is in his shoes go back in and keep listening and engaging
Mercy that was trying. Daddy man has him in the other room calmed for the most part but edging and easily provoked if any frustrations come his way.
Now our Daughter needs to be pulled out she is just the opposite anxious/ambivalent I will need to focus to pull her out over and over and when she is ready she knows I am here. She would just become part of the wall if not. If I do not wait for her timing she gets sorta snooty. It is a real button pusher for me. So I try to think teenager with RAD = stay calm speak to her respectfully and make it about her behavior not her heart. By guarding her heart through the dance she easily comes to offer an apology when the dust settles. I just tell her over and over how I love her for ever.
I tell them often that there is a huge difference between our REACTIONS and who we really are within our hearts. In some folk perhaps not so much but those are already hardened souls who have lost hope.
I just pray for those.

Life with RAD is not easy but understanding when the symptoms get in my face the person is most likely feeling pretty insecure and so I am simply offering a rock for them to hold to. One day they will hold fast on their own. Stand up to the RAD temptations and be able to laugh as they say
"IT'S NO WONDER!"

Now I find myself watching my own reactions seeing the roots of them and making conscience chooses to learn how to ACT intentionally in a different more educated way.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Adult Attachment Disorder & Treatment



Thanks for stopping by.
I have been relating with my two adopted kids seeing some RAD patterns in them. Scary stuff when passed on and innate to their own journey. Made me stop and look at it. I have really been aware of the effects of some of this. Felt bad about the way I responded to the world. Understanding is the beginning of the knowledge needed to make that change. It is not about feeling bad about myself it is about identifying why I am this way.
Fondly
Donetta


Childhood attachment issues leave an adult vulnerable to difficulties
in forming secure adult relationships. Patterns of attachment continue through the life cycle and across generations.
New relations are affected by the expectations developed in past relationships. There is a strong correlation between insecure adult attachment and marital dissatisfaction and negative marital interactions. If an adult does not feel safe with others, he/she will tend to be either rejecting of their partner or overly clingy.

Attachment problems are often handed down transgenerationally unless someone breaks the chain. As a parent, an insecurely attached adult may lack the ability to form a strong attachment to their child and provide the necessary attachment cues required for the healthy emotional development of the child thereby predisposing their child to a lifetime of relationship difficulties.

Depending on the genetic personality style of the individual and the early life events experienced, insecurely attached adults fall in one of two categories of insecure attachment:
Intense anger and loss
Critical of others
Sensitive to blame
Lack of empathy
Views others as untrustworthy
Views others as undependable
Views self as unlovable or "too good" for others
Relationships feel either threatening to one's sense of control,not worth the effort, or both
Compulsive self-reliance
Passive withdrawal
Low levels of perceived support small
Difficulty getting along with co-workers, often preferring to work alone
Work may provide a good excuse to avoid personal relations
Fear of closeness in relationships
Avoidance of intimacy
Unlikely to idealize the love relationship
Tendency toward Introjective depression (self critical)
ANXIOUS/AMBIVALENT
Compulsive Care giving
Feel over involved and under appreciated
Rapid relationship breakups
Idealizing of others
Strong desire for partner to reciprocate in relationship
Desire for extensive contact and declarations of affections
Over invests his/her emotions in a relationship
Perceives relationships as imbalanced
>Relationship is idealized
Preoccupation with relationship
Dependence on relationship
Heavy reliance on partner
Views partner as desirable but unpredictable (sometimes available, sometimes not)
Perceives others as difficult to understand
Relationship is primary method by which one can experience a sense of security
Unlikely to view others as altruistic
Sensitive to rejection
Discomfort with anger
Extreme emotions
Jealous
Possessive
Views self as unlovable
Suicide attempts
Mood swings
Tendency toward analytic depression (dependent depression)


GOALS OF THERAPY


Identify early losses
Mourn the loss of that which never was but yearned for deeply
Provide closure to the unresolved relationship longings with parental attachment figures
Reorganize belief system and physiological reaction to attachment relationships


Gratefully, attachment styles are not fixed in stone and with either positive life experience or appropriate therapeutic intervention and a strong desire for change adults can alter their relationships and experience true intimacy and closeness.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

The Versatile Blogger with a Sunshine award

The "sunshine award" ... well just pass it on to 12 of your favourite bloggers...





Thank you from "My Mothers Always Being Me (Being Me)for the award the 'Versatile Blogger' and sunshine awards.
You have to do some 'soul searching' for this one ..

 The rules for " The Versatile Blogger" award are:

1. Thank the person who gave you this award.
2.. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers whom you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic!
4. Contact the bloggers you've picked and let them know about the award.

... 7 things about me

1.  I have a true passion/compassion for all things living (even my enemies). A desire to see it all thrive. It grieves me to think of those who harmed/harm me getting what they deserve. I would rather see them turn and face the consequence of what they have done/do. Perhaps change coarse through sincerity. Stopping the cycle.
2. There is an insatiable thirst for creativity that merges with the core of who I am. I MUST be beading, sewing,gardening, cooking, parenting intentionally, learning at all times. My education was robbed me in youth so I must gain it. Not just intellectually but spiritually and physically as well. What ever it is that interests me it is that I will intentionally study. I believe that everything matters.
3. The delight found in intentional parenting is so profoundly successful. To make every effort to learn everything wholesome about early childhood development. Well... it leaves me with a real good sense of self that I like when seen through my kids. I can often even see it in the mirror of who I have become.
4. Being self sustaining to the greatest extent reasonable brings me mission and leaves me feeling confident (not something I ever knew growing up). I live intentionally.
5. Threw some amazing force bitterness has not filled my heart. This is choice yes...but even so a miracle in my estimation and I am grateful so very very much so. It fulfills a sense of belonging not to separate myself through hardness of heart.
6. When I am confronted or exposed in error it usually leaves me very angry inside. I use this as a pretty accurate indicator that they are right. Now, I can find humor in it most days. It is so funny to me now how child like it is. I find great beauty in the innocence of child like simplicity, even in myself.
7. I thrive on good wholesome foods. Home made from scratch. Organic homegrown produce. We have a few chickens for eggs as well. Cooking is a skill developed over many years and has always been of great interest to me. The main stay of my food is a huge variety of herbs and spices. I love sociology and cook culturally like visiting a new country every meal. Eating pure well prepared foods is one of the first things I began doing so many years ago to take care of "ME" physically.


oh this is a bit overwhelming tonight I will try to get back to it soon.
Forgive me.


1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Partial Memories

It has been a while that I have stayed back from discussing things on my mind and spirit. But yesterday was so utterly profound that I do not want to ignore and respect the effect of it. When flash backs are only a single flip of a memory they can be a thorn in the side. You know those thorns that are felt yet search as much as you like they remain an enigma elusive and disturbing. Then comes a day that it comes (the thorn) to a head as they say and you run to get the tweezers to delicately put it out and relieve infection. Often the infection has left misunderstand and often the effects on others go unnoticed.

Being the youngest of more one hand full of siblings the realities of elder siblings and the view from the eyes of their experience can open ours and clarify a matter. There have been three of them who have joined me in knowing and opening up to the truth of what we have known. some do not it is the past period. So here begins such a story that unfolded after 45 years of dormancy.

For many years now an occurrence has haunted me and left me wondering just what happened that would make me respond the way I had. That response came like so...

I was 19 at the time awaiking from an emergency surgery to my reproductive system. The first of so many many I have endured until finally when I was 38 the whole thing removed due to end stage endomeitrosis.( the inside of my uterus forced into my abdominal wall do to child po*n abuse and torture).
As I awoke from surgery some one handed me a phone. It was an elder brother. It was one of the very  very few times I had spoken with him since early childhood. I was stunned to here his voice. Under partial anesthesia came from my mouth was "how could you hurt me like that?". It was the last time I spoke with that sibling for many many many years. I have always wondered why in the world I sad that to him. I found and still find it amazing that it is left so clear in my recall. Always it has felt undone.

After the EMDR sessions of the resent past, the time line of childhood was coming up to the age that a flashback involving this sibling has been repeating over and over and it is just that blip I aforementioned.



This is the flash back

I am standing half way down on wooden steps that lead up to a bright room behind me. It is a strange thing where I was there and then as if the film of memory went into rewind back up into the room, then down the steps again. At the base of the steps there stood this brother. In the flash back I kept saying "How could you do that!"



This flash back has been so troubling so very disturbing of late that just three days ago I was in a shower praying and begging God to show me why and tell me what it was all about. I am courageous like that.

Meanwhile life goes on and the CPAP machine had arrive and the first nights sleep had afforded me a morning of great energy, clarity of mind just overall JOY! I had walked around the block and tended to a yard said meeting new neighbors. Just a real enjoyable busy morning. I was more like my old self than ever having had sleep. It was not a full night but non the less more sleep than many years have offered me in one night. When I returned home there was a message on my phone answering machine.

After 13 years it was my Brother.  Now mind you this just two days after falling onto God shoulder weeping wanting to understand. Silence is a wonderful conversational tool to understanding. He spoke to me of the events of his memory when it was right I asked him if had such an outdoor room with steps during the time I was 4. He confirmed. A deep breath as I listened more to his words. He said that there was also a switchback concrete step that led down to an apartment. In his recall he spoke of the best friend of my mother living there and her husband bill (lower case intended). He said that "what a nice woman she was "...
"no she was not I declared"...(this being the woman who lay on the other side of me as her husband fondled me between them in their bed) Yet I said nothing of that to my brother.
 Unsolicited..My brother spoke ... "OH! it was during that time that he (bill) was accused of hurting you two girls"...at that I was stirred and fired up.
It was at that moment yesterday that I heard for the first time confirmation from anyone in my family that those memories of "the moron bill" .
At that I cantered, "who accused him?"
"you girls did" he said...

Do you see the plural? GIRLS?  For all of my life I thought that I must have been his only target. It has always left me feeling crazy because the heinous acts against me seemed so unbelievable what human being could do such things.

Now my brother continued to share and the wonderful intimacy flowed. He and I had connected some 13 years prior when I sojourned to my home city of my youth to learn and gain understanding. He and I then were at peace.  It though was all overwhelming. He had driven me to all of the childhood sights and homes of youth. Some were parking lots one had a woman kind enough to let us inter and see the home of childhood memories (the event of the old woman is lost to me for I do not remember). I am sure I was there but as I said it really took me for a loop around emote.

It was again as before we have a mutual faith. All of that had been stirred up for several weeks ago after joining face book I saw his name on my other brothers site and offered to become a friend. This I did not recall doing either. Hence a contact yesterday after all these years. After that time so long ago life was a blur of tending to needs and we had lost contact.

Coming round the bunny trail...sorry

Yesterday at 11a.m. was the first EMDR for three months. It took me that long to regain my health. I have had many health challenges so far this year. The very morning that I was to return to EMDR,... after 13 years of silence my brother who was the center of the flash back, to be addressed called me!

I attended my EMDR appointment only to get there 30 seconds before she came out to get me. I had ended the call with my brother pulled away only at the need to attend the appointment. As my head spun at the events of the morning and the cries of this child of Gods heart only two days prior.

When I returned home I called my brother back asking him to tell me about the room where he was when he threw my dad out of the house and the police arrested my dad at the curb. He confirmed saying you weren't there unless you were upstairs. My mother had called the police and was hiding in the bathroom getting away from my dad who was violating a restraining order. No one knew that...
I was hiding behind the sofa...
 in the living room. The very place my brother recalls I played hid and seek. It was my favorite hiding spot. I saw the whole thing. My brother is 11 years elder than I. He was protecting our mom. But to me a four year old child that day I lost not only my dad but the only other father figure I really ever had...my brother. The police kicked and hit my dad and handcuffed him placing him in the car and driving him away.
The Flashback...I was trying to get to my dad and my brother was holding me back to protect me...I got loose from him and ran through the house out that bright closed in porch down the steps only to have my brother there and I...I said to him "how could you do that!"...I ran back to try to get past him but by then my dad was gone. The next time I saw my dad I was 9 years old.

In that operating room at 19 coming out of general I said to my Brother so many many years after the event "how could you do that... how could you hurt me like that?!...Held withing a little girl for 15 years (until the day of surgery) that hard question she had no answer to.

Those many years ago my Brother had reached out to me at a time when his toddler son had just drowned he came out of his grief to again be my defender only to had had that asked of him. Anger and hurt left a wide sea of agony between us. Unspoken. Now after all these years this poor man who was under false suspicion of abusing us girls (this he stated) had his name cleared . He accepted the forgiveness and love that I offered him.

Again here he is after 45 years taking care of his little sister. I never really lost him.

When the severity of PTSD is so deeply blinding it is God who will ultimately open our eyes to understand the truth. History forgotten repeats itself.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Tell me something brave...

In the evening hour here my son will often pull me into his room with a sweet invitation after the lights turned off brings a quiet eyes closed heart open moment in time. Last night was another opportunity to receive his invitation. I have found that often his inquiry is one of veiled curiosity something he himself is struggling with.

It is at these times I often have to remind myself to listen to the spirit within me as to what wisdom to share, just what his heart is ready to know.
He loves to ask of stories of my childhood a hidden method of asking "what should I do or how could I handle it.

Last night my child asked me " Mom, tell me something brave...when you were courageous.?"

The image that flashed gave me pause to consider his developmental stage when it was plain that it was where "the goose" was flying...I began.
Son...when I was a teen perhaps 16-17 years of age during the years my parents had the gas station an event happened that really set me to have to use courage. You see I told him . My step dad well he was not my birth dad, he married my mom and adopted three of us. Well he had never had kids and he was an old tired man. He had a very bad temper. I think perhaps that is a part of where my ill behaved temper began.
Well during these times stress was high times were tight my parents struggled that my mom was in the hospital. She had had too much life struggle and was sick within her mind from the effects of life and her own childhood.
My step dad well he had left the station and it was time for me to relieve the teenage employee of her shift and work my own shift covering my moms as well that night. With my mom in the hospital (a nerves breakdown) I had to work more. Well the girl who was working had a boyfriend who sat in the office where my mother naively left cash to make change with. The girl and her boyfriend had been stealing from us and when I walked in there was the boyfriend in the office with the drawer open helping himself. The girl also was in issue because she was selling herself out the station window. this came to my attention for we both had similar coloring and a customer had slipped and it became known to me a 16 year old kid managing my parents gas station. I fired her on the spot.

Well her boyfriend stood at the looked door as the customers watched through the glass windows while she beat me up and took my lights out with a brick that was used to hold the door open. It struck me across the head. Next thing I knew I was waking up in the hospital room and my step dad was calling me a dumb shit "what the hell were you thinking"  "do you want to kill your mother?"
Then he walked out.
The nurses had to keep it a secrete. This town was a geriatric town. A tourist trap in California.
My Mother was just doors down the hall in a fragile state and so no one could let her know I was there. My siblings all were moved away and I had no one. The customers had called the ambulance and cared for the business until help arrived. I do not know if the girl was even ever charged. It was when my memories of childhood stopped for several years. I may have injured my brain from that event.

My boy said. "mom...I am not very brave".
I asked him why he would say that. He saw me as brave in that.

I then explained that I should have never been in that position. It was stupid and foolish of me yet I did not know any better than to do it.

This child of mine then said to me..."mom it was not your fault it was your step dads for leaving you in that situation and not teaching you giving you lessons."

Then I seized the moment and explained that what might seem brave is not always the wisest thing to do. It is for us to teach you wisdom. It is why the counsel of those you respect is so important to seek.
Your father and I ..I told him take it very seriously to teach you your path and to help you to learn the difference. For often courage and bravery look very different than one might expect.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

It is what it is and that is REAL

I wanted to write tonight . A couple of things . Suppose it is hard to know where to begin. Last Tuesday, 8 days ago I did a EMDR session on a most difficult event in my life. As a child of 4 I was sold for a price to be filmed in child hood --rn. I was torn up tortured and left broken of body soul and mind. That was some 44 years ago. I held it in all of those years. When I was in hospital 15 years ago I told on them but I never told myself all of what happened in detail. Last Tuesday I recalled every single detail while the EMDR process was occurring. It was like a movie before my eyes. Oh My SWEET LORD it was so hard and so painful a sight to recall within my minds eye. My physical eyes open the whole time.
I have been rather head spun these last several days with anger that could rip apart a stone. I have had to increase the medication for a few days. The other MD Phyc said "you are so blessed" so few ever make it to this point where the things forced into us are released in a healthy freeing way. Man what a roller coaster these last 8 days.

At one time the anger hit rage.
The rage triad of ...anger...loss or fear of  loss... shame /guilt -hit me and for the first time the anger was mine the loss was mine HOWEVER the shame/guilt was NOT MINE! All of those many surgery's I suffered through. All of the stirrups my feet were in, all of the years childless longing to conceive. All of the years of rectal bleeding I suffered through in silence. The surgery in my 20's to repair the torn flesh. Torn was normal I did not even know I was not suppose to bleed. Torn form a childhood on through early adulthood. I thought hemorrhoids, that is what mom always said. Hasseled by my mom about it. Afriad to tell my family. My own sister knew she died in January this year. She knew about it, not the details.
It happend when my sibblings were gone at school and my mom was at work as was the wife of the **********dog bill who sold me. Living in our basement. He drugged me as the men laughed at the table as I nodded off. The other man reassuring bill that I would not remember.He called me rug rat and acted as if he was going to take me to nap. Held like a kind parent would at his shoulder against his chest.
Then HE BETRAY ME ONCE AGAIN! or I do not know if it was after this that the other event happened.
AT any rate I have had such rage in me or better said anger justified loss and mortification at the physical logistics of what was done to me. I am sicked literally by it physically.
A rollor coaster is in front of me and around me as anger hits, weeping begins and ends, then the anger.
The sickness in my belly.
 You can try to forget the past but with the PTSD you will most likely just be going to a pretense a state of denial that will one day find itself crippling you into addictions or taking your own life like so many I have known before me.

The last two sessions of EMDR have set me to freedoms door. For I am having the scales that kept me under water swimming for the surface are falling off as a mermaid gains her legs.
NO ONE will ever make me hold my tears again!

All my life I have never been able to let ANYONE brush my hair, now I understand. Even after 28 years married to the same wonderful husband he knows to take care to come up and hug me from behind. It is almost impossible not to cringe before melting into his arms.

I see how all the violence that was forced into me by this deviant evil moron has been left as if I deserve little more. I KNOW know that I DESIRVE to be treated with respect and kindness. Even IF I might make a mistake, I do not need to tolerate unkindness form anyone~
I am teaching this now calmly to the kids when they mouth me, It is not alright with me to be treated unkindly and I will stand up to you if you do.

I have a sleep study coming up and I panicked today as the appointment was made. I snore badly and it could be hard on my heart and stroke is at issue as well.  I could not breath and it was one of the most powerful panicks I have felt in a long long time.
I asked a very dear and trusted girl friend to go with me so I might be able to have ease. There will only be two patients but the technician is male. I can not be out of control asleep anywhere. Just can not. She was so kind she said "I find it amazing that you hold it together as well as you do".
This one thing really left me in a panic. That was the first time in years that I was in such a panicked state.

The EMDR is kicking me hard and healing me profoundly.
The binging at night is lessened. However today when panicked my lunch was enough to feed two and it left me sick. Over eating the panick. The feelings of not being understood. My husband thought it should not be any big deal. Strang that he actually said that to me.

It is what it is and that is REAL. I feel so much better knowing she will be there however I feel a bit concerned that something could come up and she would not be able to keep her promise.

my emotions are real intence and very much a roller coaster.
Did you know I scream my fool head off when I ride roller coasters like it defuses me. Happened at Disneyland. My Goodness screaming is even at the base of my chest as well.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

aurora borealis






Grandfather hold me near. 
Cover me in the colors of the Heavenly Sphere. 
Wrap me crestfallen... I am here.


crest·fallen (krestfôl′É™n)
adjective
  1. with drooping crest or bowed head
  2. dejected, disheartened, or humbled

EMDR was tough today
I am grieving such a terrible terrible event.

    Saturday, February 6, 2010

    I had a dream

    The other morning I awoke from a dream.
    In my dream I was in a car with a Very bigoted man. He was ridiculing every aspect of anything of any color other than Caucasian. The obtrusive bigotry was suffocating me. I was a kid in the dream. At one point there was a rest stop I was able to get out and walk over to a bench overlooking water. Just then a congregation of folks dressed in an ethnic garb like sari's came out and around the waters edge. Very softly my voice said "I wish my mom could just fly me home. It is so hard to be with this man for so many many miles. He is just so mean."...
    Looking out into the water I saw the most beautiful crystal clear blue eyes looking back at me and in that instant he was at my shoulder.
    I awoke.


    Yesterday evening my brother called out of the blue because he had received an email I sent him in 2001! He though to call for it was too strange a thing.
    I had told him of the dream asking him if He knew of anyone like that in our childhood. Of "course" he said bill. Now bill is he who raped me at 4 years old and we have been working EMDR on the issue with a real treasured gift of realizing at that very moment in my terrible youth I learned to HATE ME.

    Now then he continued to tell me that bill's nephew had come to visit when I was 8 or so and my sister 10 or so. The boy not much older than my brother. He asked my brother to join him in "having us for some fun" as in raping us girls. My brother took him outside and kicked the ever livin crap out of him. Just beat him to a pulp.

    My brother then told me how those folks were from the back waters of Louisiana where women were a possession as were children. I told him how many times when bill was molesting me that his wife was right there next to me in the bed.
    The last thing his wife ever said to me was many years later in my young adult hood "I never slept with him after that" I had not a clue at the time why she said that. She was visiting my mom back when she was alive. She never spoke another word to me the whole time she was visiting and I had to leave. I was married to Steve at the time. It was shortly then after that I began remembering.

    Wow, the healing that is going on by the EMDR. By clearing the frontal lobe of these trauma's I am remembering the day to day living of my life. There is room now in the cracks of what it was just to have a day in the life of.

    Tuesday, January 26, 2010

    Memory of my big sister Midge

    Another memory of the safety of my sister’s shelter was around the time I must have been 8 ish. It is in her living room. Her daughter an infant was in an old wind up swing. The hand crank made a fascinating sound. I was a kid being a kid. Midge had given me a snack on a small plate. The baby in the the swing that was on the floor in front of the T.V. and I were watching Sesame Street. It was a humble place of a rental (?) or a small house. It was in Ogden I think seemed like it was more in town. It was nice there and she was so kind to me and gentle.

    So vaguely it was as if the times with her ended like my/our mom and her got into a dispute or something. Perhaps her husband was transferred or got a job away from there and they left.
    Her husband followed the breeze it seemed always nomadic. That is the sense of it anyway.


    Love you
    Aunt Donetta

    Sunday, January 24, 2010

    Attention Memoir and Narrative Non-Fiction Writers


    My Entry 200 words



    Knocking he stood, knocking at the door. It impressing me now how many years ago the impact my sister had on me. Standing there in the sun with a post card in my hand. Not that it came by mail but from her somehow on that visit so long ago. Her Husband a carpenter was simple in wisdom the very best kind. Even little as I was he placed his hammer in my hand. The nails were strong thick and long. Two by four “Now hammer it” he said. He freed me from within. Trusting me to hold tight as I threw that hatred down. Blow after blow. Even back then I wonder if he knew the hurt and the heart ache I let go on those capable nails. Not one bent if I recall as my sister there leaning at the door frame smiled knowingly at him.
    That is some of the very first things that I recall staying there in that home freed for a few days from my own. My sister eighteen years my senior. Her husband felt as if he were almost her father. A wise old sage. An American Indian with a strong frame.
     to Literary Agents
    contest




    CONTEST!

    Win a free critique of the first 25 pages of your memoir or work of Narrative non-fiction. 

    VISIT: Guide to Literary Agents Blog spot. www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog/

    CONTEST CLOSES: Jan 31st 2010

    HOW TO SUBMIT: (copied from Literary Agents Blog)

    You can leave your entry in the Comments section of the post on 'guide to literary agents' blog, or just e-mail it. Send e-mailed entries to januaryagentcontest@gmail.com. (If using e-mail, paste everything. No attachments.)

    WHAT TO SUBMIT:

    The first 200 words of your unpublished, book-length work of memoir, femoir or narrative nonfiction (also called creative nonfiction). You must include a contact e-mail address with your entry and use your real name. Though not mandatory, feel free to submit the title of the work and a logline (one-sentence description of the work) with your entry.

    Please note: To be eligible to submit, you have to do one of two things: 1) Mention and link to this contest twice through any social media - blogs, Twitter, Facebook, forums, message boards, comments on other blog sites; or 2) just mention this contest once and also add Guide to Literary Agents Blog (www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog) to your blogroll. Please provide link(s). 


    PRIZES!!!

    First place: 1) A critique of 25 pages of your work, by your agent judge. 2) Two free books from Writer's Digest Books (I will give you several choices and you pick the books your want).

    Runner-ups - second and third place: 1) A critique of 10 pages of your work, by your agent judge. 2) One free book from Writer's Digest Books (I will give you several choices and you pick the book your want).


    WHAT ABOUT YOU? Know of any contests around that you want to shout out in the comments section? Please do :)


    Tuesday, January 12, 2010

    EMDR and the remainder of a day.

    Dealing with memory is a hard thing.
    This day I dealt with a process to help that memory to go from one part of my brain to another.
    It is a process for folks with PTSD that is finding great success.

    I did work on an event that took place when I was 4 yrs old. This was not the first time I have received therapy regarding this event. This was different. I did  not go there I just saw it like a movie. A horrible horrible movie. Meanwhile the therapy works a technique that transfers the data into the long term part of the brain taking it out of the frontal lobe. Now many years folk have said "let the pass go".
    Folks with PTSD would love nothing more than for it to "GO"
    We try all sorts of trick. It is stuck however and it is not a matter of intellectually letting it go. Trust me it would all be gone if it were.
    Body memories are a terrible thing cellular we hold within our beings instances in time that are locked into existence. Like when you smell a flower that is familiar and your mind goes to the time when a beloved gave you a bouquet of them.
    I wish the flowers of life past were so pleasant but alas they are not. they are so not...
    I am up this night at 2 a.m. I had a wonderful day today despite the fact that my sister died last week. She was the one who had the courage and was getting the help at the time and came forward to confirm my childhood. She was 18 years my elder.I have peace at her passing for there was nothing let undone between us.

    I have locked into a little metal lock box rusted from being berried under grown all of the work that I did today. Waiting to think on or focus the thoughts of the filled in recall until the next time. I have to work on this even every few moments. Gaps were filled in today gaps that I never told a soul. Gaps that I locked up into the very heart of a child soul killed.
    I was profoundly moved by the way I as a child responded to myself. With self hate and blame despising me.

    It was surreal that as I walked out of the bathroom at the clinic that a 4 year old child sat there by the door. I have NEVER seen a child there. One time Dove had to sit in the tiny lobby and wait for me attended. That was the only time I knew or saw a kid there. I was touched by what the little girl looked like she was so sweet and beautiful, her hair combed and nice clothing on her. I thought this is not a coincidence that a 4 year old is sitting right there as I walked out to the lobby. After session I went into that tiny bathroom and sobbed. I sobbed. I breathed deeply and got some composure. Walked out of that bathroom and right there was an example of what it looked like to be a 4 year old girl child. my heart was so swollen with so many feelings horror dismay she was so sweet sitting there with so much promise and innocence. Mine was robbed me.

    I am up tonight trying to keep all of that in that little metal box locked up until next time. Trusting that eventually with the EMDR that it will become less and less raw. Trying to ignore and pass through the physical pains this morning of body memory. Trying not to throw up. Trying not to react and remember that "it is no wonder". That I am alright this is just a phase of recovery to walk through.

    Had it not been for all the work over the years I would of never been able to be at this place. The tools and knowledge I have gained and practiced over these long years set me to be able to do this work. It will be long and tedious work.

    I had the strangest thing however today. A friend had watched the kids for me after school. When I went to get them home I was still spinning. I had talked my way home literally. Turn here, OK your alright , keep those things in the box. I had JOY this afternoon evening. I brought the kids home fixed a meal for each and had joy! joy! I has been a while. My husband went to a new men.s group tonight he adventured out to see about relating to others. That was huge for him. He was taking care of his heart. I was over joyed to support him in that I knew I could care for me. I realized a bit today how amazing I am at taking care of myself.
    I made it through so many terrible horrific events and am here and not dead at my own hand or another.

    I parented so lovingly. Helped my children peaceful complete homework, had wonderful exchanges with them. Tending the bed time ritual. Ready them a story and then some praise poetry. Poetry I read my kids poetry. I tried to lay beside my special needs child to help her to sleep in her own bed. It is a transition for her. At 1 a.m. I had her come back to sleep on her palat. My back was just in too much pain. I had taken pain meds before I laid down but by then they wore off. I took some more before this post. Soon I trust it will take the edge off my physical pain.
    Keeping those things locked away is helping the pain in my heart stay at bay but I am so astounded at the data of the work I did today. Gaps that were filled in that I always get left out, the second by second of the event. This day has left me profoundly compassionate toward myself. It has also given me a great respect for who I am. I am really amazing. The things I lived through. The faith that I can hold in a God that many resent for the abuse they suffered at mans/woman's hands.
    To be able to go through that and to go to God with and for that very comfort that no one else can give me right now. With everything in the box. Letting this woman child live by choice with it locked away. Exercising the act of keeping it there until next visit. We who survived and go one to learn to thrive are a truly amazing people.

    I started a new medication in addition to the anti depressant that targets cognitive, I began a preventative medication for the anxiety. It is really helping with the flooding of the cortisol from the stress disorder. I feel so much better and more even. Stress of day in day out is lessened so much because I am able to more congruently manage it. So much less reaction to it now that I really feel better about myself all around. My parenting has improved so much I am so much calmer with my kids.

    Songs of my heart