On my blog entry entitled Do Sexually Abused Children Enjoy Orgasms from Rape or Sexual Abuse?, a reader posted the following comment:
Just so afraid to let go because last time I did I ended up very suicidal and admitted inpatient. I don’t have the skills to “control” those parts. Not quite sure how to get those skills though if I can’t safely work with them. I am losing time and can feel myself fighting the “darker” parts. I have wonderful therapist, but I just can’t let myself feel. So unsure of what to do. ~ DIDdenial
Allowing myself to feel the pain in those “darker” places was one of the hardest things I did when trying to heal. I survived my childhood by being in control. I kept each memory and emotion under lock and key, rarely feeling anything other than anxiety and depression. My therapist and the healing resources I read all advised me to give those feelings a voice, which scared the h@#$ out of me. The deeper I had repressed an emotion, the scarier the idea was.
I was especially afraid of giving my anger a voice because I had buried my anger so deeply inside of myself. I feared that I would lose all control and become a raving lunatic who could no longer control her rage. Better to keep my anger safely stuffed down inside than risk not being able to control it.
What I learned through experience is that you only make the emotions stronger when you fight them. When you invite them out, they lose their power. As hard as it is to believe before you have given your “darker places” a voice, the path of fighting them is much, much harder.
Emotions were made to be expressed. As abused children, we were not permitted to express our emotions, so we had to find a way to lock them up inside. Emotions that have not been expressed outwardly turn inward. In my case, I had a lot of repressed anger which turned on me in the form of anxiety and depression. The day I started expressing my anger is the same day that I experienced a dramatic decrease in my day-to-day anxiety level. I still wrestle with anxiety, but it is nothing compared to the level I used to manage every minute of every day.
Whether you hold your emotions compartmentalized into alter parts or have them safely stuffed down inside in another way, trying to “control” your emotions only makes you miserable. Emotions were meant to be expressed, and giving them a voice is one of the keys to healing from child abuse. Don’t be afraid of them. Instead, invite them out one by one. There are many ways to do this, from expressive art to writing about them to visualizing letting them do whatever they have dreamed of doing since they were triggered by the abuse. Different tools work for different child abuse survivors. What matters is that you stop pushing your emotions away and give them a voice. When you silence your emotions, you silence yourself because your emotions are a part of you.
An analogy that really helped me was this: Imagine that you are a fire hose and that your emotions are the high-pressure water coursing through the hose. No matter how powerful the water becomes, you are not the water – you are the hose. You are not going to lose yourself in the water – you are simply the vessel holding the water.
Photo credit: Hekatekris
I rejected the term dark parts or evil parts. Does not mean that it was “right” We went with we did not create any parts for no good reason nor any extra parts that were not needed.
I am a spirit having a human experience not a human who sometimes has spiritual experiences. It is my belief that there is no such thing as pure evil in a person rather people that do purely evil acts.
Once I was talking to my therapist and she said “If they were here I would tell them they were wrong.” I said “That is not true if they were here you would try and help them.” She hung her head as I had spoken the truth.” She then softly said “I would still tell them they were wrong.”
I really believe that people do evil because of a lack of good. That they do not search for goodt I do not understand.
All that being said I have graphic fantasy’s of doing great harm to my abusers. Does that make me evil? No it does not and it is not an evil or dark part that has those fantasy’s. I am human. If I have and express those feeling/fantasy’s then the result is relief and an understanding what I really want is everyone to stop being mean.
To me the terror of becoming like an abuser in any way is proof that I had no evil, dark or bad parts. I think the relief is more that I am not like them than anything else.
I have no parts that need to be controlled only parts that need to be free.
To be clear I am not a pacifist. I am a male and have to deal with trash talk a lot. I will say “I abhor violence, so much so that I am willing to kill you to prevent it.” I say this with great feeling and so far the trash talk as ended.
I learned early in life that if you beat the hell out of a bully they want to be your friend. Just make sure you do it when no one is watching.
For me parts that seemed to want to hurt themselves and therefore me were expressing what happened, what happened to me and what they saw happen to others. Over time we were able to express and gain knowledge and enough understanding so we found some peace.
There is only one thing harder than expressing my feelings about the horror and that is not expressing them. There is great pain in expressing them, there is more in not.
I love this Michael: “I am a spirit having a human experience not a human who sometimes has spiritual experiences.”
Not so sure about this…has made me ponder though…would love for you to elaborate sometime further: “It is my belief that there is no such thing as pure evil in a person rather people that do purely evil acts.”
First it is a belief. For me all beliefs are personal and how many people have the same belief, how many do not, how long the believe has been generally accepted or rejected has no effect on my beliefs.
It fits with my experience and my knowledge which leads to my understanding.
Part of the reason I believe this is the narcissists and psychopaths I have know seem to be missing something. They may be well respected teachers, priest what have you. There is still something missing if you see.
Part of it is the famous psychopaths. Jeffery Dalmer was put on a pile of wood and it was set fire. The Uni-bomber was part of Harvard’s MKULTRA program. Charles Manson obviously had experience with cults and was in a horrible orphanage.
Part of it is the image of holding a baby in my arms that was just born. I can not imagine the child is evil.
It has little effect on my actions. I feel no need to help a narcissists or a psychopath. I would destroy one if my life depended on it.
Perhaps it is just my way of making sense of that which is unexplainable. It can not be proved or disproved hence it is a belief.
So, you must be nearby to know that i am in that place right now. You write to the places I am in so often. I am losing time. I am finding blood and paper towels and rolled up letters sometimes waiting to be delivered to my therapist. I often do that in the night and leave the remnants for morning clean up.
I am beginning to know when I am cuttng and the reason shifts. Sometimes, it releases the lead from the pencil so words and i don’t know what else, stories, questions come out on paper. some ugly feelings are working hard to keep me moving through my day like a robot, and showing me my ugliness and unwantedness through a razor at night. My only comfort is that i see my blood is red like a real person. I’m feeling a resurgence of adrenaline and i’m working out a lot again, fortunately i have plenty of spare poundage to be rid of but i have a real sense that i am blocking my own self from a raw realization of something i feel is impossible to hold. I feel so alone and that seems right. I feel like i should not be here, but overdosing in small enough amounts to just send meinto a lengthy sleep is not a true effort to exit. I turn in my razors and i bring my med refills to my therapist when I could be taking care of my larger picture but i don’t. I guess something inside wants to see the outcome of the years of learning my truth. The more times I tell of an instance, the more depth and meaning the moments show me. If it wasn’t me, I’d be facinated by the whole process. My therapist is calm and confident. me? not so much. I feel a definite war between staying and going and in between that are the revelations i continue to have.
Thinking of you aggiemonday. Sending you safe hugs……know that you are not alone.
I’m new to this site. I’ve never posted before. I’m struggling to accept the idea of what if and, if not, then why do I feel this way. I’m boxed in – running one direction and then the other – clinging to the in-between for as long as I can. But, I am exhausted. I can’t go forward and I can’t go back. I can’t see another way of surviving right now.
How can you have written these things and mirrored so closely what I am struggling with………….?
Hi, Clinging.
The reason that others can write what mirrors your experience is because **you are not alone**! The healing process has its own rhythm. While it might take you along one path and me along another, we are both heading to the same place — a place of self-love and self-acceptance. :0)
- Faith
Whenever I read posts about this subject, it makes me think of some of the ways child psychologists communicate with traumatized children.
As you mentioned art or anything representative are great because they are expressive without using words. I think many people were discouraged or threatened about using their words to “tell”, but probably not many abusers think of using art or music as a part of their threats… so there is a certain amount of freedom and just enough ambiguity to feel safe, while still releasing intense emotions.
I like to pin up people’s pictures to a dart board… but I’m a little twisted that way!
Peace all,
mia
I think that is a really great analogy. I’m going to remember it the next time I am afraid to express my darker emotions.
I also have had fears of becoming like my offenders. In response to this, I have prided myself on walking a path of honesty and integrity. However, I have also pushed myself to be perfect, and struggle to allow myself the humanity of making a mistake. It has taken alot of time and affirmations to realize that a little mistake is not “becoming them.”
In recent years (AKA – middle-age), I am also coming to see that my offenders had both the ability to love and the ability to do devastating harm. This has been hard to wrap my mind around, but in reaching a place of peace, I can see the humanity in those who perform the worst acts of evil. I neither understand how they do it, nor do I condone it, but I think most are capable of occasional loving moments too. When I give humanity to my offenders, it blurs the line between the “good” me and the “evil” them.
We all have the capabilities of the lion and the lamb – it is just which we choose to feed. And we do have choice.
But what you are reading is the result of 25 years of recovery. I would have cussed out the person who made such a comment 15 years ago!! Letting go of feelings was CRITICAL to my recovery. I set up two rules about expressing my feelings: 1) I would not hurt myself 2) I would not hurt anyone else. If I stuck to the rules, anything was game. When I was angry about my enema abuse, I bought an emema and stomped on it and cut it into bits. When I was sad about missing my childhood, I had a “kid” birthday party and asked for toys. The key for me was to think outside-the-box and do something that stuck to the rules, but made me feel better.
Creativity made all the difference for me.
“We all have the capabilities of the lion and the lamb – it is just which we choose to feed. And we do have choice.”
My comment below might be triggering to satanic ritual abuse survivors, please take care reading.
This is such a powerful phrase and I think it’s true.
The problem I have is that I am sometimes completely eclipsed by a part of me that believes she is bad, she is the paedophile, she was responsible for hurting the children with knives, she was responsible for the hangings and the dead…
In these times I feel like I should hang myself for my sins, yes, just like Jesus did, this is what makes me ‘know’ that the original abuse, where all of these things happened but were not my fault as a child, was of a satanic sort in that it inverted the meaning of the christian sacrifice. I think.
I feel I need more memories to come back and certainly a lot more therapy before I can be sure I won’t be eclipsed by these terrible feelings that i am the abuser, when, I have done dangerous things like try to hand myself in to police stations for murder, told people I am being bad to my son etc – which are lies but feel like the truth because the truth is my feelings at that time, the flashback feelings to total guilt and shame that were heaped upon me.
At the same time this is enormous, I grow to see how little steps help like praising myself each day, being kind to myself and loving myself by keeping really safe and caring for my body, mind and spirit, if there’s more continuity in this then I am less likely to be totally eclipsed and unable to handle it.
It’s very difficult, I am so afraid of that part of myself, which is really ‘them’.
Hi, A x.
The fact that you fear these things is what tells me that you are not one of them. I seriously doubt that my abusers put any energy into caring that they were abusing children. I think they saw me as a means to an end and were not bothered in the least about the effects on me — they just didn’t want to be caught. Your humanity is what separates you from them.
- Faith
Speakoutservices,
I didn’t cuss you out. I just started to. Smile.
I will have to ponder that at least some of the abusers were capable of loving moments.
Right now it seems that that is what they were lacking. This is not to say they could not create touching moments. Or that that they could not have people that loved them. I see them at least for know as incapable of seeing anything outside of themselves.
This is not to say that they are inanimately incapable. Rather they do not.
I agree creativity is what makes the difference. I have a stuffed animal from childhood. He is all beat up and torn. He is staying with my therapist and she is gong to re-sew him. So he is at the gypsy dancer vets. How that helps me heal is beyond explanation. Not something you want to bring up at a dinner party. Smile
Speakout and Michael,
My therapist always advised me to stay out of my abusers’ heads. I see the sometimes evil/sometimes kind dynamic in my mother. I did not see it in S (my most sadistic abuser) and believe she was a psychopath. However, I did not see her in every relationship. Who knows? She might have experienced true love and affection without someone else. Whether she did or not does not change my experience with her, with is why my T had that advice.
- Faith
Faith,
I pondered it and I really do not care anymore why my abusers are like the are. I am not going to change them. I know were wrong. I don’t even care what they are like now.
Pretty much it gets in the way of my fun.
Michael
This is a good post! And very relevant to something I’m trying to work with right now. Like the commenter quoted, I have some trouble letting my real feelings out without dissolving into a puddle of anxiety, anger, and helpless confusion. For the past couple months, I’ve been dealing with the fallout of a time (just once!) when I let those feelings out in a… let’s just say, a more destructive than constructive sort of way.
The idea of finding a way to let them out safely hadn’t entirely occurred to me. What are some ways to do this? You mentioned art and writing (although I never understood therapeutic art–what do you do, just doodle?), as well as visualization. Do the readers here have some additional suggestions?
“Emotions were meant to be expressed, and giving them a voice is one of the keys to healing from child abuse. Don’t be afraid of them. Instead, invite them out one by one.” ~Faith~
What if they don’t come ONE at a time?!? What if its a flood? I might be able to deal with all of the emotions if I could control them, and release them one at a time! But that isn’t how it happpens for me! I don’t get a choice with how fast they happen, or which ones to ‘let out.’ It just happens on its own.
************
“It is my belief that there is no such thing as pure evil in a person rather people that do purely evil acts…I really believe that people do evil because of a lack of good.” ~Michael~
I really have to disagree about this! I whole- heartedly believe that there are people who are evil! I am the youngest of five, and the product of an affair, so my life was totally different from my siblings! They knew what good was–they just didn’t act that way with me!
Well Faith I think you could probably put a mark in for fear of the unknown. When your pushed to anger but not allowed to be angry it’s unknown to you. I mean everyone lets their anger out because that stuff boils to the surface and it will take control but that’s just the thing isn’t it? The Anger gets out but it’s not on the part of the individual in these situations that the anger gets out. In these situations the individual (whether DID or otherwise) doesn’t know what will happen if they release their anger themselves. They know what happens when their anger consumes them and it takes control and it lets itself out. They know the evils of the world and the anger that has been let out on them but they don’t know what will happen when they choose to let this anger out. When the anger lets itself out they have no control. When the bad situation that lead to their anger happened they had no control.
Think about someone you know that is really nice and I mean milk and cookie nice. You enjoy being around them because they are just so sweet. Think about an individual like that that you have seen get angry. I don’t mean the type of anger where you knew they were angry. I mean the type of anger that they are so embarrassed by that they apologized to you for becoming angry in front of you. Where afterwards you have to think and reflect carefully to see in your mind when the remotely seemed angry.
Thats not anger to me. I have been angry. I get violent either on a physical or emotional level. Sometimes both. Anger makes me belligerent. I was afraid of letting my anger loose.
[...] my blog entry entitled Controlling the Darker Parts of Ourselves after Child Abuse, a reader posted the following comment: What if [your emotions] don’t come ONE at a time?!? What [...]
I really apprecate this post. This was and still is incredibly hard for me. One of the first alters that ever presented in therapy was my angry 17 year-old alter. She scared the crap out of me. I was afraid that I would end up being like my abusive mother. But, you’re right, it was easier to let her express herself. It was safer to let her do that in therapy though or in writing. Once, she lashed out and self-injury occured but, that incident actually helped me understand her better and I felt compassion for her and stopped being scared of that part. It was actually a very good experience. You could say “we’re” on better terms now.