recovery

JAMES’ STORY OF CHILDHOOD ABUSE AND RECOVERY

Splsh4Ripls

In this blog, I share the story James sent to me. He is from an entirely different culture than my upbringing, and what I generally share here; stories from within Anabaptist community. James, who served in the military, reached out via my blog to ask if I would share what he has experienced, and the abuse he has had to overcome. Abuse is in every culture, religion and country. None excluded. I share James’s story because it deserves to be told. And because abuse is not only ‘among us’ in the Anabaptist culture. To verify his identity the best I could, I found some articles online that tell parts of his story. (Read here: Mental Camauflage I especially like what he writes at the end. It will resonate with survivors of trauma who have been called crazy, bitter, holding on to the past, etc.)

Since it seems to be happening more frequently, that individuals send me their stories to read and share, I want to address this for others interested in sharing. I welcome your story. Stories of overcoming. Stories of struggle. Stories of the impact of the abuse, or the trauma after. Your stories are welcome here, as long as my blog is up and running. I cannot write much right now, due to my spine injuries, but am happy to give you that opportunity. The amount of detail you share is yours to decide. However, before I post, I do need to be able to validate your identity, ideally in the form of some kind of ID. That is true whether your story is anonymous or you choose to identify yourself. Since it seems to be happening more frequently, that individuals send me their stories to read and share, I want to address this for others interested in sharing. I welcome your story. Stories of overcoming. Stories of struggle. Stories of the impact of the abuse, or the trauma after. Your stories are welcome here, as long as my blog is up and running. I cannot write much right now, due to my spine injuries, but am happy to give you that opportunity. The amount of detail you share is yours to decide. However, before I post, I do need to be able to validate your identity, ideally in the form of some kind of ID. That information will be deleted upon validation. That is true whether your story is anonymous or you choose to identify yourself. Everyone who suffers abuse should have a safe place to tell their story. I offer that place.

It is a terrible thing when a child has to choose between being with their best friend, and being abused, or give up their best friend. At an age where there is little to no understanding of what that abuse really is, and there is only the anxiety and fear — or other feelings — telling the child something is wrong, options aren’t even on the table. Some children will withdraw from their friends, others look back years later and see what it all really was. This is the story James shares with us.

*****

I was born in a beautiful little town in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The first nine years of my life were wonderful. However, in beginning in 1967, my childhood was abruptly changed forever.

Often, when I would go to play at my best friend’s house, his older brother would be home hiding in the shadows waiting for his opportunity to abuse me. I remember being there and hearing a door locking, knowing I was in trouble. I would get this sinking feeling in my gut, dreading what was in store for me. My friend would hold me down while his brother attacked me. 

At the time, I did not know if my friend’s brother held power over him too, forcing him to cooperate, or whether my friend willingly participated. All I knew was that it was wrong, and it made me feel sick. Afterwards, I would run home to shower, desperate to wash off this filthy feeling of utter guilt and shame. 

Experiencing this abuse from him for nearly three years — and wondering why my friend did not come to my defense and stop the abuse — made an impact on me and my mental health. Decades later, I think back, wondering how I could possibly have considered this boy to be my best friend. 

Sexual abuse is a kind of trauma that carries intense feelings of shame and fear. I remember that I just wanted to hide. 

My mental health deteriorated; the shame was eating me away inside. I felt obligated to keep this secret — to hide this terrible knowledge from everyone around me. The ever-present shame convinced me that I deserved to suffer from the hurt I felt. 

Looking back, I now know that it wasn’t even my shame to carry. What happened wasn’t my fault. But reaching this conclusion came from a long recovery process. My healing took time.

Needless to say, I never brought charges against my friend’s brother.  At one point I tried to find him in order to confront him but found it too painful to continue on that journey.  I never told my parents nor my children.  It took me over 50 years to disclose that I had been sexually abused as a child due to the mis-founded shame and guilt I carried.  By the time I did, I was just about non-functional and it was obvious that I needed proper medication and professional counseling. It was hard, and it hurt, but it’s what I needed to do — get it out in the open. It affected me so much emotionally. As time went by this trauma kept getting worse.  In order to get better I needed to seek help.  My local doctor referred me to what is now my mental health team at the UK’s National Health Service (NHS).  My problem had been building up for so many years.  Once I was diagnosed with Complex PTSD (CPTSD) and was taking the proper medication and had one-on-one appointments with my assigned psychologist I was able to open up and tell my experience of being abused as a child. 

Finally talking about it forced me to face and deal with the long-term effects of the mental trauma caused by being abused as a child. Time and help from the right people brought healing.  I am no longer at the mercy of this mental trauma and am now able to identify what happened and understand that none of this was of my own doing. I can see how I carried this trauma into adulthood, and I can identify with others who have been through similar experiences. 

Trauma needs to be dealt with, and we must prioritize our mental health for healing to begin. If you have been through childhood abuse of any kind, please, please, please seek help.  If I can go through that long, dark tunnel and reach the other side, so can you. It can make all the difference in your life.  It did mine!

My deepest desire for anyone on their healing journey — remember, you are worth it!

*****

James has done some hard healing work. Healing he was not able to do without help from professionals. Which leads me to address the common belief among Christians that “All you need is God. All you need is to trust more. All you need is to repent. Professionals will lead you astray… or they will fill your head with anti-God nonsense.” In reality, good professionals in therapy and counseling are trained NOT to do these things, the same way a heart surgeon wouldn’t go poking around the pancreas mid surgery. And I have yet to see the Christian community (broadly) tell someone fighting cancer that they should not speak to a professional. Or looking at someone having a heart attack and telling them to read their bible and pray. God is part of the healing, and He uses avenues such as professionals and medication for the mind, just as he does for heart patients and other illnesses.

Take a bit of time to research how meds work, because there’s a lot of overlap in their function, yet somehow we demonize some and embrace others. Or embrace them for one thing, but when treating the mind would demonize them. Metoprolol, for example, is a beta blocker used for heart patients. It also affects the mind and is used for stage fright and decreases anxiety, for some.. Gapapentin is used to treat seizures and nerve pain. It can also trigger severe psychological issues, or escalate pre-existing ones. The list goes on. It is either all around demonic to seek medical help and medication, or it is not demonic.

Why are we ok with professional help in every crisis except mental health? Why are so many Christians, at least in our Conservative Anabaptist community, on medications to treat depression but still advised not to get counseling. It is a mystery to me. Because I know first hand the incredible harm that medications can do to the body, having had two heart attacks due to meds. Some doctors won’t prescribe antidepressants *unless the person is also getting counseling/therapy, because both are needed. It is not that medication is evil, or that therapy is the sole solution, or that therapy is evil. It is about working with professionals to do their part, finding support within the respective community — whether Conservative Anabaptist or other community we find ourselves part of — and being treated with kindness and respect.

There are no easy answers. For the unwell individual, there is real and hard struggle. There is fear. There is anxiety. There is hopelessness. There is a sometimes a desperate cry for an end to come. (And before you judge too wildly, go read your bible; 1 Kings 19, specifically, in which Elijah asks God to kill him. Frankly, the prophets were a bunch of weeping depressed spokesmen for God).

From the community, there are a variety of responses. There is judgement. There is easy answers. There is the “God told me… and God showed me…” solutions, that sometimes include ‘enlightened’ Christians telling the depressed or struggling person what triggered the depression, such as repressed memories of abuse or Satanic Ritual Abuse and the like. The unwell mind then sometimes adopts that ‘revelation from God’ as their ‘reality’, creating a whole new set of problems. Or there is throwing more information at a fragile mind than what they can handle, escalating the unwellness.

Other times there is kindness. There is compassion. There is respect. There is support. There is giving space. There is love. These support healing. I can’t imagine anything worse than being in a fragile state and then being further pressured and beaten down, as some are. And I can’t imagine anything more healing than acknowledgement that the mind — the human brain — is part of the human body, subject to a fallen world, while supporting the journey to healing, whatever it takes. And, let me assure you, it often takes more than a few bible verses and a prayer. I have lived long enough, experienced enough, worked with enough trauma survivors to know that this mentality does more harm than good.

The best gift you can give is support. Not feeling sorry for. Not trying to fix. But honouring the individual and their journey, while supporting their path to healing, without easy answers, even if their healing looks different than yours.

As always…
Love,
~ T ~

© Trudy Metzger 2024

Pow-wows, death curses and a happy dance

Splsh4Ripls

SATURDAY MARCH 16 UPDATE:
Last night was horrible. That’s just the truth. Chest pain/discomfort all night, and low BP, and the uncertainty of this condition I find myself in, looming over me. But symptoms constantly reminding me how fragile my life is.

Last night was incredible and beautiful. That’s just the truth. In my uncertainty, I was certain. Peace resting over the heaviness, and knowing I am okay; there is nothing to fear.

I prayed, again, a prayer I find escaping my lips these days when my heart is unstable. “God, You hold my life in your hands, and I trust You”… and I go on to tell Him that with all I have seen and know in this fallen world, the ‘forever peace’ of the other side is inviting. It draws me. I’m not gonna lie. But then I tell Him that for the love of my life – Tim, my children, grandchild, family, friends-who-are-family, and all my friends, not to mention supporting survivors of abuse, I would really like to live for quite a long while yet. And I prayed for a good friend and his family who have gone through a brutal health crisis in the past week, and has seen God do miraculous things.

Something like that is what I pray, over and over again, in the uncertainty that settled over me in January as symptoms progressed. Unbelievable fatigue, low-grade fevers, followed by crazy and unusual-to-me joint pain, irregular heartbeats (PVCs, for the medically inclined), and spikes in super high blood pressure. These eventually led to my heart racing the days leading to the dissection (SCAD) and mild heart attack. Those symptoms are not benign.

Now here we are, post ‘event’. This phase of adjusting meds while the dissection heals is especially volatile and uncertain, from a medical perspective. (The nurse’s parting words were, “I don’t want to scare you, but…” and then told of a woman who did well in hospital with SCAD and returned days later after a massive heart attack. Good to know. Being informed saves lives). And knowing my body with medications I expect some bumps. It does not like meds, and I do not adjust easily.

The whole experience is physically and emotionally exhausting, at moments, as I find myself contemplating the cost to family while I am not able to do much. (And, again, not gonna lie… I contemplate the cost of worst case scenario, and the thought of leaving is a bit overwhelming. Which is about the time I pray that prayer).

Yet, at no point have I been in fear. For this I am thankful. Growing up in violence and abuse, and always fearing for my life left me fearing death for many years. And then I had the first heart attack in 2006 on the eve of my 37th birthday. That day I learned that nothing but death can kill me, and there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of. By the time death comes, I’ll be on the other side and then I will be more alive than ever I have been before here. That terror never returned. For twelve years I’ve lived with knowing my heart is high risk, by all human and medical standards, yet it has not limited me but rather propelled me further. I anticipate this round will do the same.

***

In the past few years I’ve been cursed with death wishes, and received messages that certain conservative communities held pow-wows to silence me and curse my life. A stranger wrote that she heard groups were “sending curses to you and doing witchcraft“, to which I responded “Believe it or not, this actually kind of excites me. It means that we are penetrating something in the spiritual realm that is far bigger and deeper than we could possibly imagine.” I feel that thrill no less today as I recover than I did then.

(One friend mentioned that there would be those who would throw a celebration at the news of my death. Ah well… Put that party on hold and blow out the candles. I’m still here and doing a happy dance. I didn’t mean to get your hopes up).

When I first realized my heart was in trouble in the past few weeks, and went through numerous doctor visits, ER visits and testing, I thought of the curses spoken. I wasn’t worried that they hold power, but it did occur to me that they who spoke them might claim having such power. (And that includes those who spoke these things in relation to me exposing things that needed to be exposed).

So it is no secret that there are those who would celebrate my end, but this is of no concern to me. I walk in strength. The hand of God rests gently on me, always. He is near and holds my life in His hands, firmly, kindly, and graciously. No curse or darkness spoken has any authority or power in my life; I put no weight or stock in it. And this event won’t silence me. It will enlarge my territory. That’s what it will do. And allow me to touch the hearts of more wounded. Therefore, I praise God for it.

In the middle of the physical pain yesterday, I found Psalm 71… This is my response to both the curses spoken (death wishes), and the events of this past week (and those leading up to it).

Screen Shot 2019-03-16 at 1.44.24 PM

Maybe I’m not quite ‘old and grayheaded’, but I did become a grandma (or Nana) almost three weeks ago, and I have seen ‘great and severe troubles’, so it fits. In any case, I love David’s candid conversations with God. He doesn’t much sugar-coat the harshness of people wanting him dead, and asking God to protect him to the shame of those who wish him evil. David shows us how to be honest, to say it as it is, and still walk away with a dance and praise. I like it.

***

SUNDAY MARCH 17 UPDATE:
So far today I’m feeling better than I have since before the episode. I’m still incredibly fatigued. My right arm still aches from the procedure. And my heart is still skipping to its own rhythm. (How appropriate!)  The sudden ‘zapping’ and piercing pains (milliseconds long) are still sporadically there. But the feeling of my entire heart and surrounding chest area are spasming and tense is all but gone. And that is a gift.

Whatever that was, and whatever caused it, I am very glad to have it behind me. It was this squeezing (but not same as heart attack pressure) inside my chest, wearing me out. Deep breaths, sighs and yawns… nothing made it better. So I would rest — as in sit/lie back, because how do you take a break from doing nothing?

In the middle of that but not knowing these details, a friend from PA sent this message, “All I know is that the Strong Hand of God is on you. Soon after you told us that you were hospitalized a heavy, heavy something fell on me and I literally went down on the floor and I entered into a deep intercession like I haven’t experienced in a couple years. […] I had such a sense and a picture of the Strong Hand of the Lord holding you in a strong grip, you are covered from head to toe by His hand so that no weapon formed against you can prosper and even when His grip feels tight and weighty, remember that it’s protection, it’s safety, it’s wine pressing and it’s life giving.”

Now, a day later, feeling no ‘heavy grip of death’ around my heart, I am encouraged and amazed by the kindness of God. The words in Psalm 72, the message from a friend, the awareness of curses spoken (again, they hold no power), and God’s faithfulness in the middle of it all. And peace. How grateful I am, that in every moment – from the first awareness that ‘here we go again’, to the doctor’s “you are aware that during the procedure there is a risk of stroke, heart attack and even death?” – I felt the peace and presence of God. Nonetheless, I’m particularly happy to be alive today.

First thing I did this morning, upon waking, was prop myself up and tell Tim that I have no pain today. None. That felt good. Throughout the day there have been small episodes, but nothing too concerning or alarming. Some of this is expected post event/procedure. As with yesterday, as the day progresses so do symptoms, and I find I need to rest more. (Since I don’t get up until noon, that means I last about 4 hours before symptoms start again).

Friends set up a meal train locally, and friends from out of country blessed us with a meal from a local restaurant. I didn’t expect this kindness. It never occurred to me to receive such a thing, but when offered and I was so exhausted, I said yes for Monday to Friday for one week. (And they booked two!) We are so grateful!

Tomorrow I see my family doctor, and we discuss what next and where to from here. We really don’t know what to anticipate. And, if there was a link to the meds I was on, they have been discontinued and the Lupus-like-symptoms should disappear. With that, I anticipate the risks will also disappear.

If that was not the cause, then we wait it out and ride the waves and watch the sunset. Because life is too short to waste the beauty found in either one.

As always…

Love,
~ T ~

© Trudy Metzger 2019

Sexual Abuse & Violence: This is My Story

Splsh4Ripls4 Comments

Before I tackle how I taught my children about healthy sexuality, I will write about what and how I learned. My frame of reference in childhood was warped, and that is where I will begin.

In childhood no one talked to me about my body. All I knew then was based on what happened to me, and what I witnessed around me.  Both were damaging, though what I witnessed was probably more traumatic than what was done, or what I recall was done.

Many personal experience memories are still vague, while others have come back in vivid colour over the past fifteen to twenty years. To repeat them in graphic detail would be inappropriate and unproductive, but to be silent and avoid truth is no better, so I will be honest, but gentle and discreet.

I was born in La Batea, Zacatecas, Mexico, into a large Mennonite family. My family background was Old Colony Mennonite, also known as Russian Mennonites or Mexican Mennonites. When I was nine months old we moved to Chihuahua and started attending the ‘Kleine Gemeinde’, or ‘Small Congregation’ church, a more evangelical group that had split off of the more conservative group.

Memories of attending church are virtually non-existent, though I am told we attended regularly. The little I do recall of times at church, are pleasant and ‘happy’ memories.

At home things were very different. My father was a violent man, driven to succeed, but always falling short. A dreamer with big ideas, but no resources or focus to carry them out, he lived life on a short fuse.

Having more than a dozen children—sixteen by the time all was said and done—he was under a lot of financial pressure. Added to this was his own painful childhood, which he did not tell me much about until I was twenty-one. As if that wasn’t enough dysfunction, my father also sexually abused some of his daughters, myself included, to one degree or another, as well as at least one other cousin.

How much his rage was because of the past, and how much it was his own guilt, we will never know, but our childhood was riddled with death threats, violence and constant terror. Our home was not safe, in any way, and at a very young age I learned to ‘live in a bubble’, so to speak. It is difficult to explain but there is a mental/psychological ‘disconnect’ that happens when life is that harsh.

While my memories of sexual abuse are few and far between, memories of what I observed are much more graphic. Most of our family had been sexually abused by someone, whether uncles and aunts, a parent, or neighbours, and that resulted in serious sexual dysfunction between siblings in various degrees of incest and inappropriate behaviours. Where this impacted my life, I have freely forgiven and released siblings. We were children with a frame of reference so vile, so harsh, that this was all ‘normal’.

One of the most painful realities of sexual abuse is that children learn destructive behaviours and perceive them to be ‘normal’. But, because the topic is often not spoken of, other than a scolding or beating if caught, there is a sense of secrecy that leads children to believe that it is normal private behaviour, it is getting caught that is the problem. Especially since the adults who punish children, beating them to within an inch of their life, are often the perpetrators in the lives of those very children. And, when caught in the act, it didn’t matter if the child was the instigator or the victim. The punishment was severe either way.

That was the case in our home, and in many homes within the Old Colony culture and those who had broken away from that culture. How the sexual abuse and perversion took such deep root, I do not know, but it was rampant then, and in many communities it has not improved.

The hardest part in healing has been remembering, usually against my will, the horrific sexual abuse I witnessed as I saw groups of older teens use and abuse little children. On at least one occasion I followed a group of teens as they led some of my older siblings to a ‘secret place’ where I witnessed horrible things. For many years I questioned whether I had imagined it, dreamed it out of thin air, but this year I had the courage to ask several siblings.

Instantly, when I mentioned the ‘secret location’, the one sibling gasped, and before I could even describe what I thought I remembered, he repeated in graphic detail a vision that had haunted me for almost forty years. He had completely blocked it until I mentioned the place. We believe I was three years old when I witnessed this, or four at the most, since that family moved away from the community at that time.

With this as my framework for understanding sexuality, I was destined for pain and tragedy. The events that took place in the first few years of my life, brought deep shame on me, and set me up for further victimization later.

All of these things triggered nightmares and confusion. Eventually, when I could take it no more, I blocked those years completely so that I would not remember the details again until many years later.

The year I turned six, we moved to Canada…. A new world… a new future… a better life.

…To Be Continued….

© Trudy Metzger

Return to 1st post in Sexual Abuse Series