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Haven't been here in a while. My marriage just imploded last week and we are now in the process of separating. We had an argument the other day. I got triggered and my rage just got out of control. I wrote this at 3am as I couldn't sleep and was so upset about what had happened.

I'M SORRY

Tonight I realized so many things.
My pain was excruciating. And yeah, i'm talking about my pain again,
Because it was the most agonizing thing
I had felt in a very long time.
Not because of the hurt you caused me,
But because for the first time,
I realized how much pain I've caused you.
Tonight,
As the anger and the words left my mouth and hit the air...
I wanted to take them back...
As I looked at our son on the couch
Knowing I had totally disregarded his presence
Before yelling words
I knew I would instantly regret...
When you took him and went upstairs...
There it was. So heavy on you as you walked away...
I could see it so clearly
As if you were carrying a mountain.
I've promised myself so many times
I would NEVER do this to anyone,
And yet, here it is.
I am so incredibly sorry...
I cannot express to you the shame, guilt and pain I feel
For hurting you so deeply...
This rage inside of me is one of my darkest demons
That I fight
Every. Single. Day.
When things get dark and cold, and I feel unsafe...
It comes out to play.
I watch it take over me, and I momentarily loose control...
Until yet again,
These words I will regret hit the air.
I am not proud of this, I carry so much shame inside of me.
I hate it, it makes me hate myself.
No... I am angry
At you Mom... you did this to me.
It is not who I am inside, my true self.
I want to scream it so loud.
It is just yet another
Parasite I still need to shed.
And I will. Oh I will.
I love you.
I'm sorry.

Hi Bazou

Your courage is so inspiring... thankyou for sharing your story. 
Have just had the same lightbulb of finding the cptsd info and forum and though I was aware of the abuse previously, it has now hit home in a new way altogether. And like you, I can feel the resolve for change and determination to move into the next phase of healing, exhausting though it is.  We are soul warriors! 

It is priceless to find the site and people who know. Just priceless.
I hope you are doing well and will check out some of your other posts...

Thank you so much <3 I've just come back after being away from this site for a few months, and remembering what a great place this is. Hope you are well.

That's pretty amazing. I have no other words to say. Wow.

How about you come over at the Recovery Journals section? It doesn't have a page limit like other parts of the forum here and you can share your life over time.

Take care.

Wow, thank you so very much. It means the world to hear that from other survivors.

Something major happened this week. One important thing I left out of the story below - It boggles me that I did, but I did - is that I have a biological half brother that I've never met. My dad met someone before he met my mom and had this child out of wedlock. The mother gave him up, my dad ended up with custody when he was 1 1/2, by then, he had met my mom. He was with my parents till the age of 7. During those years, my sister was born. Then the year I was born, my parents put him up for adoption.

My mom told us the same story our entire life about the circumstances of his adoption. He was a special-needs kid, my dad was an absentee father, and after a while, she just couldn't handle him anymore. But my mom spoke about him with such venom. The first 20 years of my life, his name was mentioned in my house at least weekly, if not more. Things would sometimes lead us to try to reach out to him, with no success. He never showed any interest. I never saw him, spoke to him, met him. Nothing. In 42 years.

This has been a huge source of pain in our life (my sister, my dad and I) and it completely destroyed my father. It destroyed his relationship with us. There's a lot more, but i'm truncating.

Anyway... two days ago, my brother reached out to me, and we've been talking since. I spent 8 hours talking to him yesterday. I found out some really disturbing stuff, and my sister and I were able to piece what seems to be the truth about the circumstances of his adoption. It was straight out of a Stephen King book. I had to run to the washroom to vomit. The past 24 hours have been so intense, I'm having trouble processing stuff. He is the carbon copy of my dad. He and I have the same laugh lines. Stuff about how the whole thing came down this week is also super bizarre in terms of timing. I had a huge blow up with my mom on Monday morning. Which ended with her spewing venom at me, and me simply sitting down and telling myself, "I'm done with her. This is over". That night, I received a message from my brother. One door closes, another opens.

I want to write more, I know this post is all over the place, but I am buzzing right now.

You are very brave.

Thank you. I haven't been on this site for a few month. I am just catching up I saw your post. I hope you're well

I am so overwhelmed by feelings as the truth of my life is exposed. You are not alone. I am not alone.

No, you aren't. I see this is your first post. Welcome. I hope this place brings you comfort, and knowledge, and hope

I' ve been wanting to come back here to journal. I need to write so bad and get all these thoughts and emotions out. I wish I could just not sleep. I wish everything else could just stop. I wish I could just escape to a little cabin in the woods for a month by myself and just process all this, and grow, and heal and write.

I am now experiencing a friend not being okay with what is changing in me. I knew this was part of the process - loosing people as a result - but this came out of left field. My best friend. My sister, but just not biologically. Let's call her R. We've known each other since we were 6. We have never fought... Well, not since we were about 16.

Three weeks ago, after spending way too much time with my sister - biological this time - which propelled me into one of the longest and worse emotional flashbacks of my life, I went into a really severe tailspin. I was not well. The best way I can describe it is like a really bad anxiety attack which lasted about a week 24/7. I desperately just needed some time to disconnect from the outside noise and just focus on me, and the 'now'. I told R I needed a few days alone to deal with stuff.

R is one of the people I've been afraid of 'standing up' to or putting my foot down with. I'm realizing now one of the reason we haven't fought in 26 years is because I've been a doormat. This time, despite the escalation which would've normally freak me out and make me back down, I stood my ground.

In a nutshell, me simply asking for time alone escalated in World War III and she is no longer talking to me.

I did not see this one coming. I'm at a loss.

I LOVE you art! Especially the ones of the candy wrappers Do you do large scale too?

I'm emotionally exhausted today. And angry. And sad. And yet, somewhere I'm happy I'm finally here. That this process has started, because I'm excited about what's on the other side. But at this moment, I wish it would stop. Forget floodgates, the dam has broken. Things are flooding my brain... and my soul. Every second that I am awake. Even at night, it wakes me up suddenly. It doesn't stop.

I've realized the past few days that dissociation was a much bigger part of my life than I ever imagined it to be. I'm remembering things. I'm remembering escaping to another 'universe'. I'm remember zoning out, and the feeling of just being there but not.

It freaks my out. Yet comforts me too. It's so confusing.

I saw my therapist today. I talked about the anger that is being born in me again. Of having been robbed of so many things. And as I get back to my desk, there I see an email from who else but my mom. Another email filled with guilt, and her pain.

You are alone, miserable. You've alienated everyone from your life. You've treated everyone you were supposed to love like garbage, which is the cause of why you are so miserable today... and yet, this is still about YOUR pain?

Go **** yourself.

That's how I feel right now.

In the process of opening my diary last week for the first time in over 15 years, I found this little thing I wrote. I was 27 at the time, single mom, had moved back into my parents - those who had abused me - basement. I was in a really strange place both in my head, and heart, and life. Anyway, here it is.


The Dancing Scotch Tape

I woke up this morning to the sun shining on my face. My mom and Liam are gone. She had made an appointment to have his hair cut. She takes great joy in doing these little things with him. I could hear John Coltrane blasting. My dad being an ex jazzman and having that passion for music - I guess I get from him - takes every opportunity handed to him to go back down memory lane the minute my mom steps out of the house.
I'm lying in bed. It's warm under my comforter but I can feel the spring morning chill on the tip of my nose. I love that feeling. I finally crawl out of bed, my hair is at war, and my clothes... well... let's not go there. I start walking up the stairs and realize I can't see a damn thing in front of me. Glasses would help. I take a leap down the stairs, grab my glasses on my night stand, and head upstairs to the kitchen. The blinds on the patio door are closed. God knows why, seeing as the sun is shining out. What is it with growing old that makes you less tolerant of things like a sunny day? I don't get it.
My dad is sitting there reading Paris Match. I had gotten him a subscription for his birthday last year. It's going to run out come August, I think I'll renew it. I can see his head slowly bopping to the sound of the saxophone. As I stand there making my coffee and staring blankly at those blinds, slowly emerging, I can see the shadow of a strand of scotch tape flying in the wind. It's tied to our AC unit which my mom takes great care in wrapping up every fall before winter hits. The tape looks like it's dancing. Dancing to John Coltrane's saxophone. I smile. I put my toast in the toaster and grab the jar of Nutella. It's a sweet morning. Nutella fits the bill today. But my eyes are still focused on that strand of scotch tape. Soon enough, everything around me disappears and all that is left is the tape and the sound of John Coltrane's sax. It's dancing in the sun, it's happy. I start to laugh hysterically. I'm brought back to reality when my dad turns around and says "What's so funny?". I blush.
"Dad, that piece of tape seems to really like John Coltrane."
"Huh?", he says.
"Nevermind", I answer.
My dad stares at me for a moment, with that confused look on his face which I've seen so many times before.
They don't get it.
It doesn't matter. I do.
And I'm smiling.

Just wanted to send you a hug. I get it. I'm right there too. This place is safe.

Bazou, how are you holding up? I hope well enough.

You know, you can use the journal to 'get your feet wet' with that autobiography. Getting the details down AND getting them into perspective is very helpful. Besides my journals (yes, plural) here, I have a password protected computerized notebook that I write in. That helps me when I can't get here.

Thank you. I want to. I'm having trouble finding time to write. My life is so hectic, i've got a million "projects" going on at once... huge changes going on professionally, and my kids, school and trying to be superwoman, which is what I always do. I have been making time for myself though, taking more time to do the things I love (went for an 8 mile walk in the woods last week), I went to see my Shamanic healer last Friday, which was incredible. I see my therapist tomorrow and S & I go to couples therapy again in a couple weeks.

I have been slowly reconnecting with the part of my life I left behind for so long. I wish I could get my hands on more pictures. I found a way to decrypt the password to my diary, which I haven't opened since 2002 and forgotten the password to.

My husband has shown some wonderful signs of starting to "get it". I'm seeing it.

I am feeling the process happen. That of course involves a lot of pain and darkness that's also coming back. I found pictures of myself in my 20s in places I don't even remember being at. It's scary, yet I am so ready to finally accept and face all this. But it's so damn heavy...

I desperately want to share, I need it so badly... but every time I want to, I stop because I feel like my entire day is going to get ruined as a result (the emotional toll every time makes it hard to stay focused) and I just can't afford to right now. [For example, I have some client work due in an hour, as I sit here and type and cry].

I know this forum is a safe place for me to do so, and that is worth so much.

As I became more and more self-aware, I understood why some things were happening but I could never explain it to anyone. And when I've tried, the message I got from the reactions were the expected "You don't know what you're saying", "stop being such a victim".

I've felt my whole life like I've been in a room full of people creaming at the top of my lungs and nobody hears me.

All of the above, bazou, and a backatcha. At least we're safe here!

Thank you, Candid hugs your way!

Bazou it would be interesting to hear about your journeying
I too have had many experiences relating to North American spirituality especially

Hi Boatsetsailrose! I would love to share. I will find some time one evening this week to write about it!

I am sitting reading this and I feel like my head and chest is going to explode. I suddenly remembered the little girl who who lived almost completely in an imaginary world and I realized that when the adults in my family joked about my behaviour in front of me like Ai was defective I felt even more isolated. I ran headlong into tree and cut my face up as a four year old because I was playing hide and seek with myself. They took photos and I felt soooo inadequate.
Now as an adult when I do small silly things they feel huge.

I know what you mean. As I am working through the process, big chunks of my childhood are starting to come back to me. Most of it are memories of me in that imaginary world I created for myself as well.

When I had my first son and started watching kids movies again. All of a sudden, I discovered this utter fascination and love of fantasy movies like Narnia, for example. It came out of left field, all of a sudden, I was watching all sorts of epic movies and fairytales, I couldn't get enough. I didn't know where that came from specifically, just attributed it it to nature of being a creative mind and a dreamer. I'm now starting to remember the worlds I created for myself as a kid, those worlds where I spent most of my childhood, where I hid from the pain.

My sister has been telling me - and insisting - I was obsessed with Star Wars and idolized Princess Leia. Yet I still maintain I've never seen that movie in its entirety, let alone be obsessed with it.

It's scary... yet when you finally understand that all this is probably the one thing that saved your life... it's comforting

Bazou - Great to hear you are able to get back into your body when depersonalization comes over you.  It took me a while to learn to do that, and the same for dissociation.  I know what you mean about how unsettling and frightening it is though.     

I guess it's simply because I've been doing it for so long. I remember as a kid - when it was happening daily, sometimes many times a day - I'd bring myself in and out of depersonalization as easily as tying my shoes. Geez, I'm just remembering this now...

Question: I'm still learning about all this stuff. There are big gaps in my life that I don't remember. Is that because I was in a dissociated state during those times?