I’m listening to Brene Brown’s book ‘Rising Strong’ right now. I find her work to be very helpful. I could write more about that but I’m trying to get to a point here. I’m in a relationship. A good one. With a woman I love and respect and am very attracted to, all of which …
Last night my partner decided to watch the Color Purple, a screen adaptation of a book by Alice Walker. This is the 1985 epic movie that made the acting careers of Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg. The main character is an incest survivor, having borne two children sired by her own father by the age …
I just got back from a camping trip with my wife. With her support, I burned several boxes of old journals, dating back from my childhood through the present. It took me three days. Now that I’ve decided not to sue the old hopefully soon to be dead bastard, I don’t need them any more. …
I’m on pilgrimage to various neolithic Goddess sites in Malta with a bunch of women. It’s been a good trip, but I’ve had a cold the whole time. Tomorrow we’ll be singing in one of the temples, an underground one with great accoustics. I’m staying silent tonight in hopes that my voice will heal by …
Today I took the day off work (my hours are flexible) to have a ‘creativity day’. I had intended to practice my singing repertoire for my voice lesson tomorrow. I by early afternoon I hadn’t got to it yet, and couldn’t seem to. Finally I resorted to my journal. It turns out my inner child …
My good friend whose husband threatened to kill her a little over a year ago, got her divorce finalized yesterday. Butthead has been dragging it out and they’ve been spending a fortune on legal bills, but it’s done. Yay! I met up by chance with a good friend today who, like me, was waiting somewhat …
I got the package from my grade 6 teacher today. She sent me a beautiful letter, a collage of pictures of me and my classmates in a frame, and some stories about me then. I cried a good hard cry. I’ll write more later, since I’m at work. I think this is the kindest and …
I ran into one of my elementary school teachers at a conference I was presenting at, and we reconnected. In a follow up email I fairly matter of factly told her I’d been abused by my father (she still works in the school system and the more people who know about him in this small …
Gifts of Kindness – A Teacher Gives Survivor a Piece of Her Past Read More »
I went out my front door and found the following note stuffed into my mailbox, hanging out. I recognized my mom’s handwriting at once. Here’s what it said: “July 9, 2010 Hi [SDW] & [Wife], A long time has passed. Maybe we could meet for “coffee” tea” soon. Love Mom” and then on a separate …
He really did rape me. He really did. He really did rape me. Over and over that’s all I think, suddenly. I say it out loud, to feel my own reaction ot my words, I am sobbing as I say it. I’m reading a book by an author that is hitting the nail on the …
I was told that it was good to tell your survivor story from beginning to end, as part of integrating it and setting it to rest. Part of the problem with that is that I have some gaps and some memories that are still in dissociated states, but I’ll try. I’m going to ‘bold’ the …
I’m thinking about scaling back my therapy schedule from once every two weeks to once a month. It’s been over a year now since I found out my father/abuser had a severe cancer recurrence, and apparently he’s once again dodging the bullet. Apparently even the afterlife doesn’t want anything to do with him. Why prepare …
Why is it I can get so much done at work on a computer and the rest of my time I don’t live my life as exuberantly and richly as I want to? It is almost a year since I found out my dad had been in the hospital with a cancer recurrence for …
Knowing I have scar tissue has changed my life I think. It’s like an incontrovertable validation of what I’ve been saying all along. No longer can I doubt or go into denial about the accuracy of my memory. I know what happened and I was accurate all along. It is an immense relief. The other …
So the gyne visit went about as well as it could possibly go, and better than I could have envisioned. The nurse-practitioner I saw was very experienced and nice and drew the correct line between warm sympathy and matter of factness. She said we could take as long as we needed, and she did the …
Okay, so I think I found a safe (to me) place to get a gyne exam. I found out through some friends that the community health centres have nurses that do pap tests, who are allowed to schedule longer appointments than doctors (who under our health system are allowed 15 minutes, if you can believe …
“Warriorship…does not refer to making war on others. Agression is the source of our problems, not the solution. Here the word “warrior” is taken from the Tibetan Pawo, which literally means “one who is brave.” Warriorship—is the tradition of human bravery, or the tradition of fearlessness.” – Chogyam Trungpa In those terms, most of the …
I just sent this. Hi there, I’m sorry for doing this in an email, but wasn’t certain I could explain all this well over the phone. I hope you can forward this email to whomever in your organization it might concern. I’m originally from [home town] (born and raised) and am an incest survivor. My …
Email to a survivors organization in my home town Read More »