It doesn't heal and doesn't make it better . No matter how hard i try. The edge between the good and bad is so thin , i can barely balance.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Today was my third session with the shrink.
It took me a while to start writing again. It is not that it doesn't hurt anymore, it is more like a self-preservation. According to my shrink , i have a typical "Post traumatic syndrome". The one that wounded warriers have after the combat zone. She says one doesn't need to see a death or be close to a death to get affected.
First comes pain, then comes depression and detachment, and now i am in the stage of avoidance. We are avoiding the subject all together. We are dancing around each other trying not to talk about that. But i am also avoiding people in general. Every time i have to talk to someone out of our circle i sort of tune them out - i don't want to share my thoughts with anyone, but i also don't want to listen to their complains or problems. I know it might be important for them, but do they really realize how little and insignificant it all is? Should they know about that? Probably not and it's not my job to make them to realize it, so to avoid the confrontation i choose not to communicate with anyone at all. Former miss popular-girl, life of all the receptions , balls and diner parties. I am slowly but surely turning into sociopath. Kind of funny.
We are staying busy, trying to fill the emptiness with everyday's tasks. Routine helps. Our household goods came from Turkey. Finally! And as i started to fill my empty house with the furniture and our familiar stuff I also started to fill up my own empty shell with the memories. Having your things back is like meeting the old friends: "Oh, Hi! I am so glad to have you back."! Sometimes it is a surprise : " Oh, i forgot I've had you, but welcome anyway." And sometimes it is a confusion:" Oh, Really?! Did i really spend money on you? Really?"
Most therapeutic was finding our Christmas tree. Over the years we all got into a habit to buy something that can be used as a Christmas decoration from the places we've lived in or visited. Our Christmas tree is never beautifull designer- like-put-together-tree with every glass-ball in lined with another. It's usually somewhat messy and disorganized with no specific theme, it's overflowing with the toys and hand-made decorations. It's our memory tree. This year it was so good to open the box and start the journey back into my memories and the times when we were so happy and so clueless about that happiness.
I was telling Anna the story of every little treasure : where it was bought, was she there with us and what we were doing. Some things she remembered, some things didn't. I almost felt happy.
My world , the one i knew and loved, got shattered in a million pieces and for a while i desperately tried to glue it back together. It didn't work, I tried to find all the little pieces , but they wouldn't fit together. Then, one day, in the middle of the massive chaos that the movers had left us in, I just realized that probably I shouldn't try to glue anything back together, may be what i need is to try to build a new life. It's like building a house- first come the blue-prints, then a basement, then a shell and then you move in and create a home. I remember the blueprints, i have a good solid base, i even have a shell. Just need to fill it all up. Again.
But first we need to get all the dusty old skeletons out of the closets, dust them off, clean every single bone , then we will have to add a brand new one to the collection and put them all back into the darkest corner of the attic and try not to think about them altogether.
I also need to start making the amendments with God. My consular gave me a home work today, to take a first step and write to my priest, just to thank him for being there for me at the most horrible hours. I called him instead. But i am still not ready to go back to church, I still cannot pray, I do talk to God though and even started my fasting , but the faith is not back yet, and again i am not ready to face all that people and smile and listen to their stories. I enjoy my anonymousness right now. It took me a week to start driving, so it will take a little bit longer to face the reality.
It took me a while to start writing again. It is not that it doesn't hurt anymore, it is more like a self-preservation. According to my shrink , i have a typical "Post traumatic syndrome". The one that wounded warriers have after the combat zone. She says one doesn't need to see a death or be close to a death to get affected.
First comes pain, then comes depression and detachment, and now i am in the stage of avoidance. We are avoiding the subject all together. We are dancing around each other trying not to talk about that. But i am also avoiding people in general. Every time i have to talk to someone out of our circle i sort of tune them out - i don't want to share my thoughts with anyone, but i also don't want to listen to their complains or problems. I know it might be important for them, but do they really realize how little and insignificant it all is? Should they know about that? Probably not and it's not my job to make them to realize it, so to avoid the confrontation i choose not to communicate with anyone at all. Former miss popular-girl, life of all the receptions , balls and diner parties. I am slowly but surely turning into sociopath. Kind of funny.
We are staying busy, trying to fill the emptiness with everyday's tasks. Routine helps. Our household goods came from Turkey. Finally! And as i started to fill my empty house with the furniture and our familiar stuff I also started to fill up my own empty shell with the memories. Having your things back is like meeting the old friends: "Oh, Hi! I am so glad to have you back."! Sometimes it is a surprise : " Oh, i forgot I've had you, but welcome anyway." And sometimes it is a confusion:" Oh, Really?! Did i really spend money on you? Really?"
Most therapeutic was finding our Christmas tree. Over the years we all got into a habit to buy something that can be used as a Christmas decoration from the places we've lived in or visited. Our Christmas tree is never beautifull designer- like-put-together-tree with every glass-ball in lined with another. It's usually somewhat messy and disorganized with no specific theme, it's overflowing with the toys and hand-made decorations. It's our memory tree. This year it was so good to open the box and start the journey back into my memories and the times when we were so happy and so clueless about that happiness.
I was telling Anna the story of every little treasure : where it was bought, was she there with us and what we were doing. Some things she remembered, some things didn't. I almost felt happy.
My world , the one i knew and loved, got shattered in a million pieces and for a while i desperately tried to glue it back together. It didn't work, I tried to find all the little pieces , but they wouldn't fit together. Then, one day, in the middle of the massive chaos that the movers had left us in, I just realized that probably I shouldn't try to glue anything back together, may be what i need is to try to build a new life. It's like building a house- first come the blue-prints, then a basement, then a shell and then you move in and create a home. I remember the blueprints, i have a good solid base, i even have a shell. Just need to fill it all up. Again.
But first we need to get all the dusty old skeletons out of the closets, dust them off, clean every single bone , then we will have to add a brand new one to the collection and put them all back into the darkest corner of the attic and try not to think about them altogether.
I also need to start making the amendments with God. My consular gave me a home work today, to take a first step and write to my priest, just to thank him for being there for me at the most horrible hours. I called him instead. But i am still not ready to go back to church, I still cannot pray, I do talk to God though and even started my fasting , but the faith is not back yet, and again i am not ready to face all that people and smile and listen to their stories. I enjoy my anonymousness right now. It took me a week to start driving, so it will take a little bit longer to face the reality.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Night.
Finally, the night is here. She is sleeping safely in her bed and we can finally exhale and put the happy faces away , the happy faces we are learning to put on when she is around. This is what we have become- two bad actors in some freaky movie about someone else not us. It certainly cannot be us for the rest of our lives.
I keep telling myself all the right words , like- what happened to her should not define her or us; we did a right thing to report him; we are not guilty- he did it not us. But why in the world all these right words are not helping? They are just words for now, may be at some point they will make sense, but i repeat them over and over again .
Today we've learned that her offender was released under the bond to his mother's custody until the trial, second hearing is scheduled for the mid. December. I don't know what and how to feel about that. I don't feel anything but rage and hatred toward him. He is certainly not a boy that I used to take to Trick-a-treat , or watch playing with my son, or when they all learned how to swim and paddled helplessly in the pool. He is not the boy that we all used to worry about because of the family situation. He is a monster, who I didn't recognize when i hugged him welcoming back into our life. He is a sick pervert who looked at my little girl and saw an easy target not his little cousin. And now he is out there in the safety of his no less pervasive mother thinking he might get away again. He is out and we are still in hell.
My husband told me that most likely they let him out because of the overpopulation of the facilities, that there are more dangerous youngsters there , who are killers. What's the difference? He killed us too. Not physically, but he did, because the people we were that day in the morning are gone forever. We will eventually learn how to function ,smile and mean it, but we will never be the same, for the rest of our lives we will remember what he had done, for the rest of our lives we will have the memories of us siting there and questioning her and getting sick and the memories of the detective questioning her and the memory of the agony and desperation. For the rest of our lives we will have the fear for her, not just a fear what might happen , but not necessarily should - the real fear of what had already happened and how and when it will fire back at us and we will watch her development wondering if it will affect her, does she remember or not.
He keeps telling me, if I change i will give my enemy a power over me. What he doesn't understand that it's too late. I am building a new me, because the other one is just gone. Last night and today I desperately tried to find me by trying to get back to the familiar routine. After everyone went to sleep I fixed me a cup of hot tea and made myself to sit down and open my favorite blogs and FB. I couldn't understand what were my friends writing there, what was that about their jokes that i couldn't get it anymore. I decided to try again in the morning and it was the same. I saw a little post by one of my good friend complaining about her little daughter not sleeping through the night , i wanted to scream at her - Be happy she is safe with you, be happy that sleep deprivation is the only thing you are upset about.
I would take and embrace every single sleepless night for what i have now. I wanted to scream at all of them. But it's not their fault, it's me who doesn't fit in their world anymore . That world used to be mine, now i have a new one to live in. Ny world is scary and dark and full of pain. So I did the only logical thing i could think about- I deleted myself from every single online community. The strangest thing was that I felt a need to write a little notes to some of my virtual friends with some explanation, but i couldn't bring myself to say good bye to my friends who i know personally. I just dropped dead out of their lives. May be I subconsciously didn't shut the door hoping to use it to come back one day.
I keep telling myself all the right words , like- what happened to her should not define her or us; we did a right thing to report him; we are not guilty- he did it not us. But why in the world all these right words are not helping? They are just words for now, may be at some point they will make sense, but i repeat them over and over again .
Today we've learned that her offender was released under the bond to his mother's custody until the trial, second hearing is scheduled for the mid. December. I don't know what and how to feel about that. I don't feel anything but rage and hatred toward him. He is certainly not a boy that I used to take to Trick-a-treat , or watch playing with my son, or when they all learned how to swim and paddled helplessly in the pool. He is not the boy that we all used to worry about because of the family situation. He is a monster, who I didn't recognize when i hugged him welcoming back into our life. He is a sick pervert who looked at my little girl and saw an easy target not his little cousin. And now he is out there in the safety of his no less pervasive mother thinking he might get away again. He is out and we are still in hell.
My husband told me that most likely they let him out because of the overpopulation of the facilities, that there are more dangerous youngsters there , who are killers. What's the difference? He killed us too. Not physically, but he did, because the people we were that day in the morning are gone forever. We will eventually learn how to function ,smile and mean it, but we will never be the same, for the rest of our lives we will remember what he had done, for the rest of our lives we will have the memories of us siting there and questioning her and getting sick and the memories of the detective questioning her and the memory of the agony and desperation. For the rest of our lives we will have the fear for her, not just a fear what might happen , but not necessarily should - the real fear of what had already happened and how and when it will fire back at us and we will watch her development wondering if it will affect her, does she remember or not.
He keeps telling me, if I change i will give my enemy a power over me. What he doesn't understand that it's too late. I am building a new me, because the other one is just gone. Last night and today I desperately tried to find me by trying to get back to the familiar routine. After everyone went to sleep I fixed me a cup of hot tea and made myself to sit down and open my favorite blogs and FB. I couldn't understand what were my friends writing there, what was that about their jokes that i couldn't get it anymore. I decided to try again in the morning and it was the same. I saw a little post by one of my good friend complaining about her little daughter not sleeping through the night , i wanted to scream at her - Be happy she is safe with you, be happy that sleep deprivation is the only thing you are upset about.
I would take and embrace every single sleepless night for what i have now. I wanted to scream at all of them. But it's not their fault, it's me who doesn't fit in their world anymore . That world used to be mine, now i have a new one to live in. Ny world is scary and dark and full of pain. So I did the only logical thing i could think about- I deleted myself from every single online community. The strangest thing was that I felt a need to write a little notes to some of my virtual friends with some explanation, but i couldn't bring myself to say good bye to my friends who i know personally. I just dropped dead out of their lives. May be I subconsciously didn't shut the door hoping to use it to come back one day.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Healing.
Up until now I was just a passive reader of the numerous blogs. I have been writing every now and then , but only privately for myself, never for the public display. But something happened. There is always something that pushes us to do something out of our comfort zone, out of our little comfort zone and makes us to do things that are uncomfortable and unusual for us.
Up until now I've been generally happy and loving person, a mom, a wife , a sister and a friend.
Up until now I've been able to deal with my demons on my own and I think I've done pretty good job.
Up until now my world was huge and full of adventure, with very cozy and carefully created private safety of my home, where I would retreat to heal if something bothered me.
Up until now my world was safe and comfortable, I traveled this world putting thousands of miles every month on my frequent traveler card, discovering new countries and new people and always coming back to the safety of my family.
Up until now I've been so happy that it was almost ridiculous.
Well, not anymore.
Now the pain is my best friend.
They say the first step to healing is to accept the truth, be rational and be able to verbalize the facts. So here i am doing it.
Fact 1: on the Thursday , of November the 25-th, on the Thanksgiving day, my little daughter , my 5 years old princess, whose life has been all about the pink , her coloring books , the puppies and all the other things that any little girl is carrying about got sexually assaulted by her 15 years old cousin in her aunt's house while her dad and her uncle who loved her very much were right there frying a turkey just a few steps away.
Fact 2: I was not there to save her, I was with my sister-in-low cooking our part of the holiday dinner while it was all happening just a few miles away, absolutely clueless and blind sided by the fact that she was in fact with her dad in the house of the people who were supposedly our family.
Fact 3: I was able to talk to her and make her to talk to me. There is a lot of trust and a lot of love and we are the good people and raise our kids well and having it all we were able to find out what had happened right away. She was really brave to tell everyone that he was wrong by lying that she had not been there in that room with him and innocent enough to think that all she ever had done - was helping her cousin to put a lotion on his penis while he had the "wholes" on his hands.
Fact 4: We went through a worst nightmare any parents feared about by going to police and filing the charges against the child we have known for all his life and letting a detective to talk to our girl, while all i wanted was just to swaddle her in the safety blanket of my love and run away.
Fact 5: He was put in jail the very same night and confessed later on.
Fact 6: My life and my family is ruined and we will never be able to have another Thanksgiving dinner ever again.
Fact 7: I am in own personal hell and cannot see the way out.
So, here I am crying for help from anyone who has the tools or knows how to deal with the amount of pain and gilt we are going through now and who knows how to deal with the girl who is a sexual assault victim without the realizing this fact yet.
Up until now I've been generally happy and loving person, a mom, a wife , a sister and a friend.
Up until now I've been able to deal with my demons on my own and I think I've done pretty good job.
Up until now my world was huge and full of adventure, with very cozy and carefully created private safety of my home, where I would retreat to heal if something bothered me.
Up until now my world was safe and comfortable, I traveled this world putting thousands of miles every month on my frequent traveler card, discovering new countries and new people and always coming back to the safety of my family.
Up until now I've been so happy that it was almost ridiculous.
Well, not anymore.
Now the pain is my best friend.
They say the first step to healing is to accept the truth, be rational and be able to verbalize the facts. So here i am doing it.
Fact 1: on the Thursday , of November the 25-th, on the Thanksgiving day, my little daughter , my 5 years old princess, whose life has been all about the pink , her coloring books , the puppies and all the other things that any little girl is carrying about got sexually assaulted by her 15 years old cousin in her aunt's house while her dad and her uncle who loved her very much were right there frying a turkey just a few steps away.
Fact 2: I was not there to save her, I was with my sister-in-low cooking our part of the holiday dinner while it was all happening just a few miles away, absolutely clueless and blind sided by the fact that she was in fact with her dad in the house of the people who were supposedly our family.
Fact 3: I was able to talk to her and make her to talk to me. There is a lot of trust and a lot of love and we are the good people and raise our kids well and having it all we were able to find out what had happened right away. She was really brave to tell everyone that he was wrong by lying that she had not been there in that room with him and innocent enough to think that all she ever had done - was helping her cousin to put a lotion on his penis while he had the "wholes" on his hands.
Fact 4: We went through a worst nightmare any parents feared about by going to police and filing the charges against the child we have known for all his life and letting a detective to talk to our girl, while all i wanted was just to swaddle her in the safety blanket of my love and run away.
Fact 5: He was put in jail the very same night and confessed later on.
Fact 6: My life and my family is ruined and we will never be able to have another Thanksgiving dinner ever again.
Fact 7: I am in own personal hell and cannot see the way out.
So, here I am crying for help from anyone who has the tools or knows how to deal with the amount of pain and gilt we are going through now and who knows how to deal with the girl who is a sexual assault victim without the realizing this fact yet.
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