bad times.... trigger

bad times.... trigger
theo

theo

Registrant
been having a great deal of pain lately about the past. this has caused me to do some things i wish i never did, but the bottom line is that there is so much that is hurting. i made reference to it being dark lately elsewhere. i made the connection in an email that it was so dark that i could not figure out which were hands of help and which were hands of pain. that light switch incident really did happen to me when i was 3-4 yrs old. he came in and i fought so hard to find the light but i couldn't. is that when little theo went away? or was it when he felt the darkness of the water over his head when she tried to drown him? i really don't know anymore. the last few weeks has been more and more images of her doing what she did in the dark. how am i supposed to integrate this if i can't even face it? how can a boy face what a maternal perp did to him? how does a boy believe again that the hands reaching for him in the darkness will not hurt him? that darknessextends over my identity too. i don't know who i am, or what i am. little theo went away so long ago and he never had a chance to grow up. the identity that did grow up was me, but who, or what am i? i feel like a golem, a mud man that is artificial.

i am told to do some grief work about the death of the image of the "mother" i thought i had from my therapist. i am also told to do something fun that includes myself, little theo, and lady theo by my therapist. what is fun? i never knew fun. to me, "fun" is researching. somehow, i don't think that is done in a sandbox :) . when i thought about the grief work, i just could not face it. all of this stuff is right there below the surface and it is eating away at me in the dark but i can't bring myself to face it. how do you face the fact of what was done to you as a child by the very person that was supposed to protect above life itself? how do you face the fact that the person you thought you were was nothing more than a mockery of a person? how do you face the fact that the suffering you went through left scars that dwarf the canyons of mars in your soul?

i am fighting to keep some semblance of sanity while all of this warring inside. the maternal incest, the sodomy and oral perversion, the lies, the loss of identity, the shame of having survived. why the shame over surviving? because everything was a lie or a perversion. that is the way i feel right now, and it is why so much of what is going in my life right now is perceived in such a twisted way by me. it is why i can't tell if the hand reaching out to me is one of help or harm. the mother was supposed to be the greatest help of all, but turned out to be the greatest harm. her husband was supposed to be the one to protect all of us but instead sodomized and brutalized my sister and me. this legacy is a family tradition that dates back many traditions at least on the maternal side, what does that mean for my future? i am ashamed i survived not because i lived but because everything in my past was a lie and a perversion....and i have to wonder, how much of who i thought i was is a lie too.
 
Theo - I can feel the hurt, pain, betrayal, loss - and all.These feelings can overwhelm us and prevent us from moving anywhere - doing anything. They can be devastating!! Your T, I suppose, is trying to refocus your thoughts and feelings away from what you can't change toward doing what you can do now. I find in those days of overwhelming, weighty thoughts and flashbacks that if I can't refocus, the weight of it all can lead to some pretty ugly self-thoughts. Sometimes just doing... pushing ahead...do new things to foster new thoughts begins to make a difference. It takes work and strong desire!!
Hang in there Theo...You CAN do this!!

Howard
 
howard,
thank you. it is so hard to chart the undiscovered when one can't even see to touch the very nose on the face. in a way, i think it is what i try to do anyway, but i try to lose myself in the new thoughts to escape the old abuse and it ends up feeling like it is one more lie on top of everything else. somewhere, i know there is a truth in who i am, but that truth is buried for me right now. all i have to go on is the kernal of faith that it is there. how else could i have not only survived but continue to respond to the pain of others? that is the only proof i have right now that i am real, but in the face of everything else right now it is not enough to ground me completely. do you remember the scene from that tornado flick with helen hunt where she is staring straight up the actual center of the funnel cloud? that is what it feels like for me. i am hanging on to something to keep from being ripped into the chaos of the tunnel, but i have no clue what it is, i can only see the chaos.
 
Theo (and Little Theo),

It is our most natural instinct to survive. The strong survive. There is no shame in being strong, by surviving. It is admirable.

I long thought the child in me was killed, but he wasnt. He was locked in a closet in the recesses of my soul by some very terrible people. As was little Theo. The closet door has been unlocked, but the little wes are too scared to come out and play. I see how that your Ts idea of doing something that would be fun for Theo, Little Theo, and Lady Theo would make Little Theo more comfortable and easier for him to come out of that closet and join you. Allowing you to meet him and embrace him.

I know it is hard to turn the light on so that we will see the way and find our ways out of the pain we are in. In fear it is hard to stand up to find the switch, let alone, turn the light on. But you, others, and I have the strength within us to stand up and look for that switch, turn on the light, and find our way.

I hope that the light comes on for you and Little Theo. That it comes on soon.

Hang in there,
Bill
 
bill,
thank you (yes, i read your other post on that and i know there is a "your welcome" there :) ).

when he came into my room that night so long ago when i was three or four years old and did what he did it changed me forever. the innocent image of my therapist from november of '02 of me helping little theo flip the switch just snowballed into the recall of that night. now it is something i am dealing with every moment right now. if it is not the reliving of that moment in the dark with him it is of an earliear moment in the dark of the depths of the water when she tried to kill me. i am drowning or flailing against monstrosity in the dark who is doing horrible things to me all the while trying to keep a straight face in the midst of my grad school career and doing it all without medication for my ADD or ptsd. somehow, i am hanging on...but who is it that is hanging on?
 
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