Complex PTSD

Nightmares of my inner child

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Alissa came to me in a dream. She told me she was very frightened to go back into the camper. She had to go before and she doesn’t want to go back again. She can’t go back anyway. If she tells anyone, the cat will die. She shows me an image of a black cat with its neck cut open. There is dried blood matted on its fur.

She said she could tell about things outside of the camper. She showed me an image of herself naked on the rope swing that hung on the big tree outside of the camper. Her long hair was in piggy tails.

She told me that she was me. She said I might find pictures of me.

I felt disgusted with the girl but I left her alone. She was crying and felt like she was in trouble for what she did. Maybe she is the reason the cat died.

This was just one of the many nightmares I had over the next couple months as I processed everything that happened with my dad. I wrote this dream down immediately upon awakening. It was especially horrifying as I awoke in a state of panic with tears streaming down my face. It felt incredibly real.

The men in the camper

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I was having nightmares again, that is when I could sleep. I felt anxious, hypervigilant, and swept the bottom of the depth of despair since I heard the news about my dad. My husband wasn’t sure I would make it through this time.

I felt triggered. Ancient memories were stirred. I couldn’t outrun my demons. The old coping mechanisms didn’t work. I started thinking about things that I didn’t want to think about. I was drowning in the flames. Nothing made sense.

I remembered the camper that was parked under the big tree next to our house. I remembered a man saying if I was a good girl I would get a soda out of the camper fridge. I always remembered something bad about the camper. But I didn’t want to think about it. If certain bad things happened, I wouldn’t have the will to live and I wouldn’t survive childhood. So certain bad things didn’t happen.

The camper under the big tree had a screened in porch. It sat on a big concrete slab. There were other things inside the screened porch such as firewood and bikes. It was only there for a summer or two. Around the time I started kindergarten only an empty slab remained.

I knew the men involved. There were snippets of blurry memories. One of the men I rather liked. He is dead now. The other man I secretly hated. There once was a picture of that man in a frame on the dresser with the fish tank. I hated him so much I crumpled up the picture and threw it behind the dresser. My mom would think Matt did it because Matt always wrecked things. I will never mention his name because I don’t want to make accusations of things I am unsure of. Maybe nothing happened. Or maybe I’m in denial. I can’t remember clearly, nor do I want to.

Then there was my dad. I think he might have been there as well with a camera. I was afraid when the police searched my parents house that they would find pictures of me. But what was I paranoid about? Nothing ever happened. Right? Were my fears irrational or grounded in some warped reality that I could barely remember? I couldn’t understand why I was so worried about it. It was similar to feeling guilty for a crime I didn’t commit.

For some reason, though, I couldn’t rest until I heard what my inner child was crying about. The more I tried to hide, the more it assailed me. I had to accept that maybe something happened to me in there. But there will always be a part of me that doesn’t believe any of it. I was too young to remember anything in vivid detail. Decades later I’m not even sure why my mind wanders back to the camper that was only there for a summer or two.

I don’t want to remember, yet somehow I can’t seem to forget.

Guilty!

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One thing I wasn’t expecting was to feel guilty for my dad’s crime.

I felt paranoid. I worried that the police were going to come to my house and confiscate my computers. Maybe they were going to investigate me. I knew the fear was irrational since I’ve never done anything the police would take an interest in. All other family members that I talked to about it felt the same way. It was like his dirt rubbed off on the rest of us. We all felt familial guilt for a crime only one of us committed.

The bar was set low. It didn’t take much to step over it. I wanted more for my children, for my brothers and I. I wanted a family name they could strive to live up to. Would we be looked down upon for the sins of our father?

Would they take our foreign exchange students away? I would feel a moral obligation to report a conviction to our coordinator like she told us to if the case should arise. She did have an exchange student that wrote letters to an exchange uncle in prison who was removed from the home she was placed in. Maybe they would get removed since they saw my dad once or twice before I knew of his crime. I was not planning on having them around my dad again. My brother Luke was also not planning on having his pre-teen daughters around their grandpa ever again. Do you know how difficult that was especially around Christmas time? I hope not.

I didn’t want to see my dad again either. The children were what I was living for. Otherwise I might not have bothered getting out of bed. I had to have them up and ready for school in the morning. I had to force myself to be excited, to give them a memorable Christmas. The kids are really what kept me going. I had to be alive for them. What if they were taken away? How would I explain things to their parents? Was I going to be punished for his crime? Does the trauma never end?

I felt like I received a life sentence for a crime I didn’t commit. All happiness and joy were striped away. I was guilty for a crime I didn’t commit. Guilty until I could prove to be innocent.

Activated

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I had a really good appointment with my counselor yesterday. I posed the question to her about how come I feel more anger towards my mom than my dad. After all my dad could be described as cruel, mean, and at times a downright evil man. My mom has nothing but good intentions and most would view her as a genuinely good person. What was wrong with me? It just didn’t seem right.

I was starting to do a lot of healing work before my daughter turned my dad in to the police. After that I was a real mess. I really didn’t know if I would get through it. But here I am today not all that upset with my dad anymore but still angry with my mom. Why is that?

My therapist said I did a lot of healing work. Some of the healing work allowed me to de-activate my triggers. The memory of the trauma is still there, but the buttons don’t work anymore when people try to push them.

When my daughter turned my dad in to the police, it re-activated my dad button. It’s taken me almost a full year to de-activate it again. Here’s the thing. After I moved out of the house, my dad was no longer cruel or mean to me. My relationship with him went from horrible to neutral, from hatred to pity. But once my daughter turned him in, the switch was re-activated. I remembered every terrible horrible thing he did. It even brought up memories protected by my inner child deep within. Then everything started back up again with the insomnia, nightmares, anxiety, hypervigilance, and depression. It was like I was stuck being a kid again and it was very frightening.

But since everything has happened with my dad, I’ve only seen or talked to him a handful of times. He seems sorrowful and downright pitiful. He lost weight. I can only view him as a weak sad old man whom his family has pushed away as a result of his own behavior. You can’t outrun reaping exactly what you sow. I’ve seen it tear him down into a broken elderly man. As a child I hated him so much I wanted him to burn in hell. Now that he is in hell, I don’t seem to want it as much.

But with my mom, I’ve tried to turn off the activation switch while she is using all her strength to keep it turned on. She has been a manipulative controlling martyr my whole life. Whenever I’ve tried to set boundaries she has marched right over them and made me feel guilty about it. She never liked my choices in friends, boyfriends, music, clothing, goals, etc…then she would take it a step further and try to change me into the person she wanted me to be. So of course I am angry. Her behavior has not changed. She is pushing all my buttons and I haven’t been able to de-activate the mom switch.

My parents are toxic people. They have always been toxic people. At this point I am not even sure what to do going forward. Therapy every day??!? I don’t want to cut them out of my life. I’ve had to take a few steps back though for my own sanity.

What my therapist said was profound to me. Now everything makes sense. I had to write it all down before I forgot about it.

Gratitude week 51

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  1. Paul started working for a small family business. They had their office party at a hibachi grill this past week. It really was a nice time. Afterwards, Paul and I drove around to look at the Christmas lights.
  2. I finished reading a book on boundaries. I found out I have a lot of work to do. I find that I feel guilty setting boundaries with certain people (like my mom). Even blogging at times makes me feel guilty. Guilt is a feeling I need to work through to set boundaries and write about my life, but it doesn’t mean that I’ve done something wrong. I never realized that before.
  3. This is a big one. My mom apologized to me this week. Last Sunday she came by my house, even though we can’t have Christmas and she doesn’t ‘visit’ because of COVID, and asked me why I didn’t answer when she tried to call me. She has a tendency to call at the worst times like when I am in the middle of making supper. She said she was having a hard time and thank God her sister Jan was around to help her through it unlike me. If she left a message saying she needed to talk to someone, I would call her back. This time she came over and angrily asked me what I was doing that was so important I couldn’t take her call. Her visit left me angry and upset for several days until she apologized.
  4. Christmas lights! I love them so much I might leave some up year round.
  5. Baking Christmas cookies. Yesterday I made roll out Christmas cookies with icing. Today I made Amish sugar cookies. I found some of my grandma’s old recipes that I will also try out in the next couple days. We are getting together with Cindy’s family on Christmas Eve and I am planning on bringing a lot of the food.
  6. It’s only 5 days until Christmas and I am pretty much ready for it. Now we just need some snow!!
  7. Our investment from selling our business finally came through!!! The dividend check should get us through for awhile! I’m grateful to not have to worry so much about money. Arabella just got on the waiting list for residential mental health treatment. Unfortunately it looks like our insurance will not be covering it and it is very, very expensive. It will be worth it if she gets the help she needs and her quality of life improves. It helps to have options available for financing it if we need to. I was really stressing out about it.
  8. We went out to eat this week to celebrate the investment. We had a really nice family time with our two oldest kids. Of course my mom tried calling while we were out to eat and I didn’t answer. Can’t win them all I guess.
  9. I’m grateful that I now have over 900 followers. I never thought I would get to this point when I first started. I read a book a couple years back from a blog of a lady that was training to run her first marathon. I thought, wow, I want to try blogging and running a marathon. Now here I am writing about personal things I never thought I would be writing about. And here you are right with me!
  10. I never thought I would be saying this but I’ve reached the point in my life that yoga and meditation sounds better than pounding my body by doing marathons. While I still want to run, I have no desire to race anymore. What is one more medal anyway? I no longer want to be on stage. I’ve had my lead roles. I no longer want to sing in front of people. I no longer long for high stress hobbies. My body is tired and wants rest. My mind is ready to embrace a slower pace. It’s time to try something new. I’m grateful to be ready to accept the aging me.

Safe at shore after the storm

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I had just clung to a lifejacket that was thrown in to help me out. Getting used to living with childhood trauma was not living for me. But I was being dragged underwater again. Were all my efforts up to that point for naught?

I was drowning but I didn’t know if I wanted to swim any longer. It took too much effort. The ocean was too wide, too deep. I lost the lifejacket in the waves that slammed down on me. I couldn’t see beyond the next wave that hit me taking away my breath leaving me gasping for air. I was frightened this time it would kill me but part of me didn’t care.

I was pulling you down trying to stay afloat with the weight I was carrying. Maybe it would be easier if I didn’t fight against the chains of the anchor that bound me. Why keep struggling with not even a rescue boat in sight, not to mention the safety and calm of a lighthouse ashore.

I didn’t care. I went back into the safe place of old inside of myself where there was no joy but most importantly no pain. I was so drenched and shivering that I didn’t notice your tears for me. I didn’t notice as you tried to set me free from the chains that shackled me. People marveled at how I was entrapped so. But their kind words and murmured whispers did nothing to set me free. They couldn’t help you help me.

If you couldn’t help me you might as well drown with me in the drink. Your cries never reached my ears in the eye of the raging storm. Yet somehow I remembered how to keep safe like I did so many years ago. Though trapped, the wall I built around myself was high enough to keep the storm surge out. Yet the water trickled in around me reminding me I couldn’t stay safe inside forever. I kept sheltered in its womb until I saw the clouds part. When I trusted I was safe enough, I pulled myself out of it.

You were waiting for me in your boat. The water was littered with lifejackets surrounding me. I knew how hard you were trying to reach me but I could not see it then. The sun shone on the distant lighthouse as we slowly made our way to shore.

Panic Sunday

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That is how I ended up almost having a panic attack singing on the worship team in front of church on a joyous December morning.

I received a phone call from my daughter minutes before the service began. Grandma knows…the police didn’t arrest grandpa…guns in the house…a felon with nothing left to lose…depressed before…we need to get grandma and Matt out of the house…homicide?…suicide?

I received the two minute warning that I needed to go up and sing. I quickly said my good-bye as I threw my phone in my coat pocket and ran onstage. Maybe I should’ve taken some time off. When life goes to crap I tend to carry on with my plans. Maybe that was a mistake.

It was almost impossible to sing praises to God as I imagined my dad with a gun to my mom’s head. Singing may have calmed me in the past, but with each word my panic built to the point I almost ran off the stage mid song. I had a hard time keeping it together as the what ifs clanged in discord through my mind. It was agony to feel this way yet having to pretend that everything was fine. The service was being recorded and was live online. The whole world could watch me freak out.

I called my mom as soon as I could afterwards. She had tickets to see a show with Matt. She was going to pack her bags and come over after she took Matt back to his group home. With four teenagers in the house, I didn’t have an extra bedroom for my mom but she was welcome to stay here as long as she needed to.

I was still afraid of what my dad might do when she left. Should I go over there and try to talk with him? Was he angry with me because my daughter turned him in to the police? I called my brother Luke. He said if there was any chance that I could be in danger I shouldn’t go. It wasn’t like I had a car to drive anyway. The girls were in a matinee performance at the theater and needed to use my car since Paul’s truck broke down the day before.

Luke said he was going to give our dad a call and talk to him about Jesus just in case it was their last conversation. He said he could never forgive himself if he didn’t reach out. He also said it was time to tell our brother Mark and he would make that call as well. I decided it was time to tell my adult son Alex. Alex was very upset about the news and said he never wanted to see his grandpa again.

I decided we needed to keep the doors locked day and night just in case grandpa tried to come over and retaliate. I didn’t feel safe. We were on high alert. Later that evening my mom came over. I was relieved that she was safe. There was a lot of crying and whispered conversations behind closed doors. It was obvious that something was wrong. I told the children and people somewhat close that my parents were thinking about getting a divorce. It wasn’t an outright lie because it was possible, but it was far from the truth of what was really going on…

The day after the police came

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The day after the police came was the large extended family Christmas party. We showed up a little late since we were having vehicle trouble. In fact, Paul dropped us off at the party while he tried to figure out what was wrong with his truck.

When I walked in I saw my mom hugging a relative and crying. I was looking for signs that she knew something was up with my dad. Crying at a family Christmas party was not outside of the norm. It happened so often as a kid that relatives prompted me to be a good girl and take care of my mother.

My dad didn’t show up to the Christmas party. That wasn’t out of the norm either. He didn’t show up for Thanksgiving at my house. He didn’t really take an interest in family gatherings. Sometimes he stayed home with Matt so he would have a good excuse not to go. He couldn’t use Matt as an excuse anymore because Matt was there and no longer violent thanks to anti-psychotic medication.

I wasn’t feeling very festive last year and really didn’t want to go. But it was important to keep up the appearance as if everything was normal. This was not unusual for me either. Trying to muster up some fake smiles while my life was falling apart. Yeah, just found out my dad is a pedophile which triggered traumatic memories but hey life is great because it is the Christmas season. I’m good, how are you?

On a quest to find vehicle answers, Paul’s truck broke down and we had to have the vehicle towed to a garage. Perhaps this could be my excuse for the forced smiles. Yeah, I’m worried about something else.

Something seemed a little off with my mom. She said she needed to talk to me about something important. Did she know?

We ended up getting a ride home from some relatives that lived near us. I tried calling my mom later but she didn’t answer. She called me back when she got home but didn’t talk about anything important. What was going on?

Clipped wings

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I was my mom’s best friend. There was nothing that happened in our house that I didn’t know about. In fact, I was an active part of the decision making. When my dad wasn’t terrorizing the house, he neglected us. He was angry if he had to take any responsibility at all for us and would often take it out on us. Most of the time when he wasn’t roaring or raging you could find him in front of the TV.

As next in line, my mom asked me. My mom couldn’t decide what to do with our dog when her intestine twisted. The vet took x-rays and said we would be taking our dog home to die a painful death. My mom couldn’t decide what to do. I wanted to take the dog home. As the night progressed, the dog’s suffering increased. She asked me if we should have the neighbor come over and shoot our dog. I told her I didn’t want that because the neighbor shot his puppy for chasing the chickens. I didn’t want him anywhere near my dog. Maybe our dog would live. I made the wrong call because I was too immature to make adult decisions as a child. Meanwhile, my dad laughed and talked with his friends in the other room.

At 6 years old, I was responsible for watching my 3 younger brothers swim in the lake. My parents wanted some time to themselves in the cabin. My brother almost drowned. I froze as he flailed and choked. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t move. I was not mature enough to handle the responsibility I was given. Yet somehow I felt like I was responsible and had to control the outcome of something I was incapable of doing.

I was responsible to comfort my mother after my dad was mean to her. I was responsible to help her feel better if she had a rough day with Matt. I listened to her and held her as she cried. I told her everything would be okay. Yet I was never comforted.

I was responsible for the outdoor cats. I fed them and cared for them. When one cat was a bad mom and let her kittens freeze to death, it was my responsibility to bury the kittens. I dug a hole, but after touching the first cold kitten I screamed and threw the box of dead kittens into the tall grass. It was horrifying.

My brothers and I had to do a lot of chores like hauling wood. One time I almost hurt myself carrying the biggest log. After that, I was no longer allowed to do men’s work. From that day on I was in charge of laundry, cleaning the kitchen, and when needed meal prep. I was allowed to play in my room when my brothers worked outside. All the while my dad called them lazy and yelled at them when they didn’t work hard enough. It always made me feel guilty watching them suffer.

I was responsible to care for my autistic brother. He was mean to me but I was responsible to make sure no one was mean to him at school. I helped shower him and make his meals. I was his second mother. It was my responsibility to take care of him forever. My mom didn’t want me to go far away for college. She was jealous when I had other friends because she was my best friend. She pretty much clipped my wings before I figured out I could fly.

When my brother Matt was at his most violent, my mom pulled us all out of school. I was home schooled from 8th to 10th grade. I rarely left the house. COVID was not the first time I lived in isolation. It was hard because my friends went on with life without me. I should’ve been allowed to be a child. In some ways I thought I was cool. Who doesn’t want to be an adult when they are a child? As an adult I wondered what it would be like to be a child. But it was too late to go back. I missed out on the magic and wonder. My biggest regret was that I was never allowed to live. I didn’t even realize it until it was too late.

I decided from a young age that my own children would only be allowed to be children. I didn’t want them to have any responsibilities or many chores. I was going to protect them by not telling them anything that was going on in the house. I was going to try to hide all problems from them and deceive them into believing the world was a good place. I took on that responsibility because it was already my burden to bear. I couldn’t break free from feeling like I was responsible for things I had no control over. I didn’t want my children to feel like I did.

What? A crime

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After a sleepless night, I decided to call my therapist’s office first thing Monday morning. What could it hurt? Surprisingly, she answered the phone. She was able to fit me into her schedule later on that day.

I was a mess. I was worried that all the healing work I had done would be undone with one swift traumatic blow. I had been in therapy alone for a couple months. I just started seeing a wellness nurse for my health issues. Would I fall back into a sick game of trauma Tetris?

My daughter was going to report my dad’s crime that night. I felt anxious all day. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t settle down. I couldn’t believe what had happened and was trying to process everything.

I did feel a little better after seeing the therapist. It’s totally crazy, but the only people I feel that can understand me are the people highly trained in dealing with trauma or have been there themselves. Those people are hard to find and are so terribly broken.

The following evening my husband and I met with our pastor and his wife. Our pastor said my ultimate goal was forgiveness. But I was not even at step one, acknowledging the fact that my dad is a pedophile. Anger burned inside my heart for my pastor. I felt jealous because he had the type of parents I wanted. I wanted more than anything to belong to a healthy loving family. He had no clue what it was like to deal with trauma. It wasn’t his fault, but I resented him for it. Although, in his defense, he had no idea what he was getting himself into and wasn’t trained for this.

No one really knows what to say. I don’t either. When your good godly father dies, I don’t know what to say to you. It seems insensitive to say that I wish I had a father like yours. It doesn’t matter if he is dead. Many times I wished my dad was dead. Then, perhaps, this hell will end. But will it if it is stuck inside of me? Maybe I will always carry this baggage long after the train has left. I suppose I will have the answer someday, but it doesn’t make me feel like a good person right now.

Later that evening I received a phone call from the police. By then my nerves were shot. The officer asked me a lot of questions. What are the birth dates of your parents? Do your parents own guns? Did anyone else live in the house and have access to the computer besides your mom and dad? I told the officer that my disabled brother lives at home on the weekends. But I also told him that he cannot read or write which crossed him off the suspect list. I nervously answered all the questions asked of me.

The officer asked me to not have any contact with my parents until they talked to them. I thought I would be getting a call from my mom after my dad got arrested. But that is not what happened.