If You Can't Remember, Does It Mean The Abuse Wasn't Real? - Part 4

IMAGE CREDIT:  https://pixabay.com/en/sundress-summer-dress-girl-woman-336590/

FOUR | my journey journal

Over the last four years, I have kept record of my storms of trauma recovery, marriage counseling, personal therapy, disassociation, depression, an abuse support group, EMDR therapy, missing stages of development, neurological tests, brain scans, personality tests, learning disability tests, anti-depressants, ADHD and bi-polar diagnosis on When Rayne Whispers, my first blog… yet, few new memories of abuse and continued distance from my family, remained pieces that I just couldn’t seem to put together.

It has been important to me to continue to find my voice as an abuse survivor and a writer, despite the pieces of distorted, lost and repressed memories that I continued to put together.  Repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse as an adult is like being handed life in a puzzle box, having it shaken up and dropped all over the floor like a hail storm… all for you to pick up and put back together.  And, I’m not convinced you’ll ever find every piece - if every piece is in there.  However, if this is the life I was handed, I am so thankful for the bravery and intuition to start picking up one piece at a time and begin writing when I did. 

Recently I went back to the beginning of my blog… I was amazed when I reread the words typed by my hands.  Looking back at the beginning of my blog is like reading another person’s words.  Even now, I can see that I wrote in very detached sentences and thoughts.  Then I thought that I was being poetic and figurative with word-play, ironies and analogies as often as I could.  But now, I think I was searching for a way to say what I couldn’t say. 

Yes… that is why I felt called to journal! 

Writing when I had no story and when I only had whispers of words, even if for no one else but me… made a difference!  Even if I am the only difference it makes!  Looking back, I was on a journey and I was going somewhere… maybe not fast or in the right direction always, but I was going somewhere other than where I had been and that had to be!!  I continued to pray and write - soon my whispers started to become my journey.  I called it my “My Journey Journal”. 

I still yearn for a story… my story.  But as guilt and shame follow me, they also keep me mindful of my writing for others – it has to be part of my story!  I still try to not always seem depressed when I write and I don’t want to seem continually chipper.  Neither would adequately represent my journey.  However, it isn’t easy writing when you are depressed without a smile in sight and it feels like bragging when you aren’t.  I’ll say this, every day is a product of my commitment and effort to make myself more important than what happened to me. 

I struggle with the trap of generational cycles, only having moments now and then that I can actually remember without taking a picture and having to take naps every afternoon in avoidance what I’m not able to accomplish.  I struggle with guilt that I get frustrated if I am around other people for long periods of time, shame for what I don’t know happened and guilt for not being present for my family that doesn’t believe that this happened to me.  I have to admit that I have selective hearing and control issues.  I have unexplained phobias and intensified sensitivities to sounds and smells.  Co-dependence, triggers, narcissism and repressed memories are still terms that I am getting acquainted with.  Not feeling that I have “proof” that struggling through this storm is real is exhausting and it torments me.

I wish I could share some things that are OK with me… I know I sound like I am a mess.  I suppose I am, it’s just easier to share to obvious things in question.  Because, the thing I struggle with the most with who I am… is not knowing.


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I am a Mid-West girl turned Southern wife and a mother of four.  I currently work in marketing, web and social media content.  I have degrees, have taught and professionally performed as a professional musician, an artist and in stagecraft.  If I were to describe myself, I would say I am creative, impractical, organized, imaginative, honest, frugal, and like being in control.  I have always dreamed of being a published writer or professional speaker - then I realized, I really didn’t have a story to share... well, several years ago life presented me with journey!  My name is Rayne... I don’t yet have a story to tell, but I have a journey to share.




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