Strength

Sometimes I think strength is misconstrued

Some ascribe it to one’s attitude

Some would say get over it

Others would say, take time…heal

I battle inside

Wondering what strength is

They say ‘you’ve already conquered’

‘you’ve made it through,’ they say

“The battle is already won”

But it’s not because, for me,

The battle’s just begun

The repercussions of a supposed win

Eat me alive, from within

So which way does one go?

Eaten alive, just to survive?

Appease the ones who’ve “been through worse?”

Apply salve to the wounds

Through the need to cry, heal, move forward?

Go to work, get a job, be productive?

Sit alone, cry and be self-destructive?

Nobody knows, but many think they do.

Walk in others' shoes.

Truth is nobody knows strength

Only their own strength

their perceptions of others' strengths

Nobody really knows.

Anything

I will do anything
To get out of this skin
Change my voice
Make myself thin

Be sophisticated
Be untamed
A socialite
Or just unnamed

I'll curl my hair
Or leave it straight
Wear pearls and lace
Or cut my own bait

Cook like a chef
Or go out to eat
Rub your shoulders
Massage your feet

I would do anything
To get out of this skin
The possibilities, endless
Don't know wh where to begin

I'll beg forgiveness
Hide the secret resentment
Never cry before you
Bury my lament

Or cry if you want
Let you save me
You be the hero
If it's what you wanna be

I'll be successful
(Though it won't last)
I'll try again
And I'll hide my past

Leave you out
Or let you in
But only if I
Am out of my skin.

Denial

Sitting in the seats
watching the show
half-hearted, half-listening
to things I want not to know

Stories and flashes
Flicker inside, too
"Yes, girl,"
"Yes this happened to you."

"NO IT DIDN'T!"
some part of me fights
yet from that same place
buried deep, a spark of light

Not of judgment nor fear
not of hatred or guilt
just a glimpse - a tiny scrape -
in a wall I have built.

"Impossible," I think
And I turn the movie off
Shut down the fight
Turn off the light

Still I ponder
And some part of me aches
"You'll know me one day,
Whatever it takes."

I shush it with distraction
Any will do,
Still I hear that whisper,
"Yes, honey, this happened to you."

Shadow

She stares at me
a stranger in the mirror
She is there
but I'm not here

A veil hangs
betwen who she is
and who I am
who I see

It's not me
not me that I see
some other person
some other story

Her pain isn't mine
her secrets, her own
I close my eyes
And she is gone.

-C

Whores and Martians

After my blog on Forgiveness and Judgment, I received a brilliant email from a friend. It was a very well-thought-out, compassionate and knowledgeable email and there were things said in it, that really set me back, made me think.

I spoke with my APRN about it today - gave her a small paraphrase from the email - to which her response was, "She's exactly right." My APRN is fantastic and has experience working with PTSD and DID.

The paraphrase was something like, "If I insisted you were a martian, you would laugh and think I need my head examined. It's the same with words like 'whore' and you have to dig down and find that wounded part of you that believes you're a whore and help heal that part, hold that part, assure that part that it's safe now and she's not a whore."

She said many other wise things. It hurt in some ways - mostly, though, because that "part" (or those "parts") of me, I avoid. I abhor. I don't want to see them. I don't want to hear or feel them. That makes it a bit difficult to embrace them. I guess it's sad to know some parts of me are crying inside, and if I saw someone else - some other child - crying fiercely over their pain - I would embrace them and comfort them but for me, it just feels so disgraceful, even though I know it's an important part of healing.

I've been working on a story. I'm up to about 30,000 words. I've written it in the third person and that keeps me detached from it. I've also fictionalized 80 percent of the first part of it, but it's my story....or at least, the story of a girl I no longer wish to acknowledge but who seems to control my thoughts, reactions, relationships.

Writing the story, brings up a lot but what's missing is the emotional element. I can't connect, can't understand. I can only imagine what she must have felt, what she must have believed.

Judy (my APRN) says it might be good for me to write about these things - the things it brings up. Truth is, I wish I had someone there, who knew what questions to ask.

"What did you feel when this/that happened?"

"What did he/she look like/"

"What was the environment like?"

"How did you respond? Why?"

Because these elements are missing. It is just as if I am telling someone else's story. Exactly like that. Exactly like it's always been. From a distance, looking through a lens at someone else's life and experiences.

It's a dream of mine, to publish this book. God how many times I have started it and never finished. So many unfinished manuscripts. But this one is different. I have avoided it over the past week. I've shared it with four people - it contains some humiliating facts about myself - so I have only shared with a select few and of them, only portions.

It is hard to write. Hard to remember. Hard to connect. Hard to stay focused.

Thank you, my friend, for your email. And RevAli, for your response. It is nice to hear words of wisdom, of healing, of guidance. Sometimes I feel like I'm hanging by a rope over a chasm and it's about to snap and all I can do is cling on and cry.

My relationships are suffering (except with Bill) because of the distance I've put between myself and the outside world. Most recently I suffered a severe epiphany which brought me great pain. Great, great pain and deep shame and I can't even bring myself to write about it. Perhaps one day I will.

For now, I cry almost nightly because of it. More and more shame, piling on.

Seems too much to share, and too much to bear and sometimes I just have to hang onto moments like this weekend when Bill came and forced me to buy a nightgown and robe. It's the first time in ...I don't know how long, I bought something for myself. Something I really wanted. He helped me plant flowers, and bought me some cacti to make a cactus garden in my dining room window box where the heat is too much for anything else. Somehow I have to hold onto those good moments, according to Judy. Let them in, let them permeate me.

I like that idea.

She told me that I have to learn to do this so when I  get flooded and overwhelmed, I won't shut down so automatically because that's exactly what I do. I get three text messages at once and I  go on auto-pilot. The phone rings and dinner's cooking at the same time, I  go on auto-pilot. I have an appointment and the school calls - autopilot.

She said this is something I learned very young and it is now automatic. So automatic that it happens even when I don't realize it. She is right.

Memories, flashbacks, dissociations and therapy

My name is Cristina D. Johnson. This entry may trigger.

In north St. Louis during the late 70's and early 80's, I was on the streets most of the time and, particularly, between ages 11 and 15. Intermittently, I would hitchike to various places. I was raped often, beaten just as often, especially when I was in St. Louis. Or, "home," as I thought of it.

After my kidnapping, I felt....  I don't know.... as if I belonged there, on the streets. I'm sure it began before that - I mean, I remember not feeling at home with Grandma and Pop because of the things Daddy did - but being on the streets became predominant after the kidnapping. I was 11.

After that, I was deemed "incorrigible" and made a ward of the state. I was no saint. I stole from my grandparents. I also shoplifted from Sears and Ben Franklin. Clothes, mostly. If not for Sears and the occassional clothesline with jeans my size clipped to it, I would never have had clean clothes.

I didn't steal with malice, although I know it could have been seen that way. Especially in Grandma and Pop's case. I even stole from my great grandmother, who was loved by all. She had a little green cup that sat on the mantle in the dining room, behind the column at the end. It was a coffee cup that was only one half the size of a normal cup. In gold letters on the green surface, it read: "Well you asked for a half cup of coffee."

I remember this is where she kept her cash. There wasn't a lot, but there was a lot for a teenage, incorrigible ward of the state. Pop kept his cash in the top left desk drawer. Grandma kept hers in her purse. She also kept her watch in a little box that sat on the counter behind her, where she also kept her address book and other things.

I stole the watch once.

Stole the car two or three times - don't remember.

Sam, the dog, knew me and I wasn't scared of him.

Most of the time, the money I took was to keep people from hurting me. To recruit allies, I suppose. It didn't really work. They would never be "friends" - they were ghetto opportunists.

One of the ways these men took advantage of women was to get them high. I never (fortunately) was into drugs as a kid. I had access and I did them because you couldn't not do them. Not doing them, was as good as wearing a badge and saying, "Hey I'm a narc," and was sure to get you beaten, if not killed.

It was always a no-win situation. You knew if you did the drugs, you'd be raped/beaten, but if you didn't, you'd possibly get worse so you just rolled the dice, hoped for the best.

The most dangerous drug I ran into was "whack." Back then crack was really becoming popular and I did it but didn't like it. Also did weed and coke but "whack" (aka PCP/Angeldust) was used to dominate.

Last night a friend of mine contacted me. She shared a harrowing experience she'd just had. I didn't think about it at the time, but as I laid down to go to sleep, I realized the experience she related to me was identical to a number of my experiences with "whack." I asked her this morning some basic questions and I firmly believe she was given it, without her knowing.

This brought me back to a memory of a cabby who took me to a motel. I don't remember the situation or circumstances; just that I'd smoked whack (which I HATED) and somehow ended up in a motel room. I was raped by the cabby. I recall watching him take my clothes off as I lay helplessly on the bed. I recall seeing him as if he were hundreds of yards away. I recall trying to talk, but not knowing if I was talking.

Whack didn't always affect me this way, but this wasn't my only experience like it.

Talking to my friend, I could taste it. Smell it. Came back to me as if I'd just smoked it. When I say I hated it, I cannot articulate how much. The smell, the taste never leaves you. To this day, sometimes I smell it at random places and it always makes me sick. I absolutely hated it.

I also recall being raped and beaten by a group that I'd been sold to. One of the perpetrators that I recall very vividly was Lafayette. I recall him vividly because he beat me horribly - worse than anyone else - and he had the largest penis. He caused me great physical pain and more than one bloody face. If I cried, as he raped me, he would punch me wherever was convenient - typically, on my face or head.

During the first incident (I ran into Lafayette and his gang multiple times. Lafayette was not the 'leader' but he was very violent and dominant), I smoked whack, but I remember Lafayette very clearly. He raped me multiple times - both with the gang, and alone - throughout my time on the street.

 None of this is really new to me. Although I remember some of it or, at least half of it, I am completely disconnected from it, too.

So this morning, when I thought about "whack," and I talked to my friend and surmised that she'd been given PCP, I became angry..... angry for her, sad for her, scared for her....

And it took me back to that motel room.

Strange thing is, I feel nothing for myself. If not for my friend (who is in college), I would feel nothing but because she's so young and because of my own experiences, I felt it vicariously. Felt the anger vicariously. Felt the violation vicariously. Couldn't shake it.

Went to therapy.

Talked with Michelle about a few things, then finally told her about the cabby, my friend, whack and Lafayette.... some details.

When I finished telling her, she informed me I'd told her about the cabby before.

I was stunned.

I began to cry.

I had never told anyone about the cabby. Not to my knowledge, except my friend and that was just this morning.

I shook my head. Told her, "no."

"Yes," she said gently. "It was Friday."

I shook my head. Cried, disbelieving.

"I thought...I thought Friday.... I thought we talked about rent Friday," I sobbed.

"It could've been Monday," she said calmly, "But it was definitely last week."

Tears fell fast. I was embarassed. "I've never told anyone except [my friend] about the cabby," I told her.

"You didn't get into as much detail as you did today, but you told me about it."

I was floored.

"Funny thing is," she went on, "You used almost exactly the same words, although you didn't give as much detail and you haven't ever mentioned Lafayette."

I cried. I was mortified.

Quickly pulled myself together. Apologized.

She said, "This is that double-edged sword. You want to remember, but when you remember, it hurts."

I nodded in ascent.

"I think things are just starting to come up for you. These memories are coming back."

It sucks to not remember, remembering. I hate not remembering.

I told her that.

I wonder what else I've told her.

Good feelings that hurt

My name is Cristina D. Johnson

I have so much to say tonight. I hope I don't ramble. I had a very exciting session today.

Something really huge happened Monday, but I didn't realize it at the time. In my blog, "To Show or Not to Show," I wrote:

"She brought her other hand up to gently squeeze my shoulder. This made a part of me scream inside, "DON'T BE KIND TO ME!!!! STOP IT!!"

It hurt more to have her be that kind - to touch me despite my wound - and say those words, than anything else."

This session brought up something very deep, that I wasn't expecting, but being willing to explore it, I looked within myself and started questioning why I felt that way. Why I reacted like that internally, though I didn't say a word. That session affected me so deeply, in fact, that as soon as I got home, I vomited. It was that powerful.

I talked with Cindy at length about it and then later, talked with Bill but it was right before dinnertime, just after he'd gotten off work. I said to him in a text, that I loved him - I truly love him - in a place that hurts. He couldn't have known this, but I was speaking from that wounded place - that place that feels this intense feeling. But since he didn't know, his response frightened me and shut me down. I almost went to bed but instead, this time, decided I would tell him.

And we talked about it at length....I told him I have this huge, huge wall but there are pinholes in it and every once in awhile, he or Cindy will reach through it and touch that part of me. It's very childlike and afraid.

It's also very frightening to feel so I am always on guard - always have been - and I'm only now realizing this.

The next day, I wrote "Tenderness Kills," and I wasn't going to post it on my facebook page like usual, but I did send it to my therapist. It's always been easier for me to write than speak. I never heard back from her so I was very nervous to go see her today.

"So, tell me about your email," she said after our opening pleasantries.

I told her, as I was writing it, that I envisioned a child, cowering, always afraid...always waiting for the next foot to fall.

So she asked me about that...and I explained.

Family meetings.

These were meetings held every day where Daddy and his wife and her two kids (ages 13 and 16) would meet in the family room with my brother and I. We were five and six years old. Each time, Daddy would have us stand in front of him and he would  tell us all the things we'd done wrong that day. He would then make us take off our clothes as the rest of them looked on, and he would put us over his knees and beat us with a wooden spoon. He would then tell us to get our clothes and go to our rooms. We could hear the others snickering behind our backs. Perhaps the worst parts of these meetings was when Daddy would cry, making me feel as if I were the lowest life form on earth (he also did this when he molested me, and I would do whatever he wanted, hoping to stop him from crying).

I told her about my mother's lying - so many lies - and how, when I tried to tell her about my abuse, she said to me, "Oh that's nothing. You should try...." and then she went on to tell me some story of her childhood, completely invalidating me. That was when I was 12 and I never talked with her about it again.

I lived on the streets and in the system from age 12 until I ran away and got pregnant at 15. I was kidnapped, first though, at age 11. When we lived in North Carolina with my father, he strangled me and smothered me as he molested me. He beat us and constantly stormed around, punching holes in the walls or breaking furniture. He was unpredictable and frightening (except for most of the times he molested us when we were younger).

"So no wonder you envisioned a child cowering," Michelle said. "It seems that's all you've ever done."

"Yes, it is," I agreed.

As we began to talk more about this "part," I became increasingly excited to have an explanation for what had happened the night of our previous session so now, hopefully I won't confuse the reader by going back to Monday night, when I'd told Bill what I had.

Part of me shut down with Bill's response to my profession of love for him.

But I emailed him - it was too much to say in texts - trying to explain it. All cerebral, but with this new awareness of this FEELING that I didn't realize I had.

The rest of the night, we texted back and forth but I remembered very little of it the next day. I discovered the next day I'd emailed and called my attorney, I'd opened a window and I'd gotten coffee ready to be brewed. I did not remember any of this. This is where  DID comes in. If you understand the Internal Family System's Model, there are three "types" of parts: Managers, Firefighters and Exiles.

Managers (to cope) are the "parts" that handle day-to-day stuff, keep things in order, get groceries, pay bills, etc. They manage.

Exiles (hurt)are the "parts" that hold very powerful, intense emotions - pain, rage, fear, shame, among others - and are usually young parts, stuck in a place in time where they are still being abused.

And the Firefighters (compulsive) are the ones who come in when the exiles are starting to emerge and the managers can't handle it.  The Firefighters either watch over and soothe the Exiles or they hush them by any number of means, including binging, cutting, distracting, drugs/alcohol, shopping, etc. There's a whole list but when the "system" (the term used to describe the multiple parts of someone with DID) becomes disrupted, the Firefighters step in and take over.

This is what happened Monday night: First the overwhelming session with Michelle, then the issue with Bill - all surrounding this young, wounded part of me.

One of the Firefighters said, "Oh no, no way" and I think has always said, "Hell no. Do not be tender to me!" because this other part - this part that loves so intensely, is very authentic and young and open.

So if I go by the Internal Family Systems model, it would seem that I have an Exile that is beaten down, terrified and wants to be loved, that's being protected by a firefighter that's saying "hell no, stay away!"

But now that I understand it more, it makes more sense and I feel like there's going to come a time when I can talk to that part - or those parts (?) - and soothe them myself.

I never truly understood why it hurt so much  to hear my grandmother say, "Oh honey, I'm so sorry," when she came to the police station and found me beaten and bloodied after my kidnapping. In my mind, for all my life, I've always felt that it was the worst possible thing she could have said to me.

Now I know why: Don't be kind to me!

Of course, there were constant reiterations and reinforcements of this belief....going through so many rapes by men who said they were there to help me; being molested by men in the system; being attacked in hospitals. Why would a child expect kindness or tenderness after that? Why would I expect (or feel comfortable receiving) kindness or tenderness. For years, a soft, tender touch would make me cry. I still sometimes whimper.

Over the past few months, I've felt that terrifying feeling for Bill and for Cindy. Through those pinholes.

I want to explore it more...open them up....break down that wall....

I'm both afraid and excited about it.

Too deep to hear

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

The past few days have been incredibly difficult. I've been dissociating more and it's absolutely terrifying. I wake up not remembering things I've done (I didn't remember writing the last blog) or I am suddenly somewhere I don't remember going to, wondering where I am and how I got there. Nothing dangerous - usually in the house - but it feels like someone's plopped me down into a foreign country. The headaches are worse, and they're daily.

My therapist was gone for nine days so I didn't have the regular appointments I usually do... we talked today about whether or not that might have something to do with the email I sent her today that simply said, "I am nervous to see you today" to which she replied, "Well then it's probably a good thing you're coming! See you at 3!"

 Today she pulled a lot out of me, really. It's so hard to trust.... so hard.... but I want to heal and I want to be something, do something, make a difference so this is something I have to do.

Interestingly, she gave me an analogy similar to one I recently blogged (about being in a dark tunnel) and what she said, turned me inside out.

"I always tell my interns, there are people [like me] who are so far down this hole - it's like a well - that goes way, way, way down and it's so dark, they don't see the light and they cannot hear anyone's voices calling them to climb the ladder up," she said.

"My job is to go down there to you, and I will. I will go down in that darkness with you and I won't pull you up, I will be behind you with my hand on your back and you will make it to the light."

She was very gentle as she said this. Today's session was very gentle because I was very weakened and vulnerable.

She also asked if she could share something with me, that she learned from her retreat.

"Yes," I said.

She went on to describe that the break-up I've gone through isn't like a fifth-grade, "I don't want to play with you anymore" kind of break-up. This was a heart-breaking break-up from someone you expected to be a life partner.

She used her hands to illustrate that "When our hearts are broken, we are busy building walls around it, tall, thick brick walls to protect it when, in reality, when our hearts are broken, they are open."

I envisioned a butterfly, spreading it's wings.

It was very moving to me, to think of it that way. Yes, my heart is broken and omg am I vulnerable right now but I keep putting up these walls....not just to protect myself, but also to protect others (something I've done my whole life).

I have to give some serious thought to her analogy and telling me that she would have her hand on my back. It literally ached in my chest and I bawled all the way home.

I wonder who else will be there....at the top of the ladder.