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“Does life ever get any easier?” I asked one of my life mentors during a particularly challenging time of my life. “My life seems to stay in tangles that won’t let a comb slide through. I don’t think I’ll ever get the snarls out,” is how I described that time in my memoir, Being Mean—A Memoir of Sexual Abuse and Survival.
“Life doesn’t necessarily get any easier, but you do get better at it,” my mentor encouraged. This is good advice for survivors of child sex abuse.
When memories continue to churn or new memories surface, it may still hurt, but we can get better at how we hold our memories and angst.
I attempt to describe this in my book:
“Having memories surface and sorting through them over and over is almost as crazy-making as stuffing them down . . . I am discovering that some of the best tools for survival are having the courage to be open to what I have lived, forgiving myself, and accepting that this work may take a lifetime.”
But sifting through memories as I try to make sense of them remains a challenge. How do I find meaning and sustain the balance I’ve created in recovery as memories continue to surface?
For some survivors, it’s a challenge to stay open to our feelings. We learned to numb and dissociate as children, and these patterns persist unless we continue to take steps toward healing. In my book I wrote,
“How do I get to that sadness inside of me, where that scared little girl resides—who had no idea she was living with trauma—and assure her that I know she is there, that I am choosing her, that I love her and will protect her, the very things I always wanted my mother to do for me?”
Oddly, I think that when we keep ourselves in a perpetual state of overwhelm, perhaps to prolong numbness and dissociation, we keep ourselves from deeper possibilities of healing our injured spirits and hearts. To help recovery sink in and last, it helps to build new habits and lifestyles.
The compassion and self-compassion I mentioned in my last blog are critical, I believe, to sustaining recovery. In my book I quote my writing coach, Mark Matousek, when he talks about a Tibetan nun imprisoned twice in her life by the Chinese, for a total of 22 years, yet she insists that hate doesn’t end by hate. Real freedom, Matousek claims, may very well come from learning not to hate but instead by developing compassion.
The last time I saw my 88-year-old dad at a veteran’s home, amidst sparse conversation I told him this might be the our last visit. His final words to me were, “I love you.”
Hearing him utter this unfamiliar announcement, I felt a piercing ache, and described my feelings like this,
“. . . I’m again touched by confusion. I feel like I hurt Dad by voicing my memories of sexual abuse, despite knowing that he hurt me terribly by doing those things. And even so, sitting here right now, I realize I love him, and I’m willing to believe he loves me as well. I don’t understand all this: how memories get trapped, then surface; how love gets learned and bartered; why good people do horrible things and call it love; how love can rise through unhappiness, confusion and control.”
Having strengthened my compassion and self-compassion muscles helped me to navigate this experience more than practicing hatred.
But there are times when joy remains elusive in my efforts to sustain recovery. Sometimes it’s there, and other times not. What I’ve learned is that it is a constant process that requires a willingness “to have the courage to trust being truthful” as I say in the dedication of my book.
A part of being truthful is practicing open and honest conversations with as many people as I dare: my spouse, my family, my friends, my community, and people who attend my readings and ask questions. When I do so, it’s like freeing my adult voice and also that of the little girl within. Her voice chimes in beside that of this older woman who is simply no longer willing to let joy be out of reach.
In the epilogue of my book, I explain how
“I have worked hard to not allow my past take away my willingness to look at my story and explore how to best live with what happened to me, and also how to better understand the choices I made throughout my life . . . It has taken me six and a half decades to be able to stand before what I have lived and admit to it all. From this more secure place of reflecting on my life, I have chosen to peel back the layers and dig through the rubble. The risk I’m taking now is to accept who I am and to continually take steps to forgive myself and be willing to live with joy. As I l earn to do so, the weight of shame lessens.”
Having the courage to peel back the layers and dig through the rubble while simultaneously having the courage to trust being truthful requires persistence. Just like with developing physical strength, when building emotional and spiritual stamina, it requires practice in order to help recovery last.
Read Part 3: Creating Space for a Healing Heart
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