When I was 7 we moved to the second house. The dog who died in the first house was replaced near the end of our time there with two black lab puppies. What were my parents thinking? Amos was a high strung hyper dog, and Andy was more placid. My father was training them as […]
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
Linear time – Age 1-7 Read More »
I can’t sleep so I’m writingthis in the middle of the night on my mini-laptop in bed. What a modern gal I am. My wife is sleeping next to me, and I”m hoping the dim light of the screen doesn’t wake her. I’m thinking about taking a break from my therapist. It just doesn’t feel
I just reread my last two posts (and found and fixed some typos). Getting to certainty is important. When I read Tarot, I get myself calm and centred, and then reach down to my roots and dwell there. This helps me be grounded in my intuition and my connection to the Goddess. If I don’t
So I did end up talking to a lawyer about my father and the scar tissue last night, but not in the way I expected. I asked a friend of mine, who is a lawyer about how I might go about finding a suitable lawyer. She asked what about and we got into it. She
Talking to a lawyer Read More »
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
Getting ready to fight Read More »
Today is the morning of the shortest day of the year. A time when I usually clean up, simplify, tidy, pray. I’m grateful for my blessings this year: learning to persevere, my friends. I’m also grateful for something that happened recently. In the place cleared by recognizing that I’d already lost my older brother, I
I’m having a rough time. Losing my older brother has really sent me into grief. First my mother hasn’t responded to my letter in over a year, and now my brother seems to have written me off. My wife and I sent off our ‘solstice letter’ to a bunch of people with Christmas cards, mostly
Ah, that stuff they I read about family systems work is right. When you try and change a long-standing pattern, people freak out on you to try and get you to change back. The deal is that you’re supposed to respond in a low key manner. I wrote the follow-up email to my older brother,
Big fight with brother Read More »
<–Warning – first sentence may be triggering —? When I was a teenager I remembered being sexually molested, touched under my panties, by a babysitter. I found out today, that the person I thought might be this babysitter has died. He’d died homeless, due to complications of severe alcoholism and cancer. I hadn’t known he’d
I’ve just finished reading “Predators, paedophiles, rapists, and other sex offenders: Who they are, how they operate, and how we can protect ouraelves and our children” by Anna Salter, PhD.. This is not a book to read lightly, as it has quotes from abusers that can be pretty disturbing. However, I wanted to understand my
Now, probably some folks will think that with name like SwordDanceWarrior and a project like planning to dance on my fathers grave, I have no issues with expressing my anger. Quite the contrary. I finally got in to see my therapist today and figured out the intrusive images of being abused by a woman. We
The other day I was picking up a book I’d requested at the library and absent mindedly browsing the books nearby, which happened to be about religion. I picked up about 8 books in all, including one called “Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith” by Martha Beck. Here’s the
Book Review and Divine Intervention Read More »
As part of my ongoing quest to stop Hiding I’m starting gradually to getting back into both doing things I’m passionate about and letting others witness me doing them. Tonight, I’ll be meeting to jam for the first time with a friend of a friend who plays the guitar. We’ve been discussing material and will
guess this is a small taste of what it will be like when I finally hear that my dad is finally dying. It is way too early in the morning. I am holding myself back from going into flashbacks, feeling/seeing my father running up the stairs behind me, looming viscerally behind me as a I
I was at a women’s spirituality conference last weekend. It was my first time in awhile attending anything to do with my religion/spirituality in several years, so is another part of me stepping out. One of the workshops I took part in was on dreams and movement. I brought in my dream about the Goddess
Hi Mom, I’ve been thinking about how to mend my relationship with you. I thought I’d start by sending letters. What I thought is that, in 14 years where we had almost no contact, you really hadn’t gotten much chance to know who I’ve become. I was 19, then I was 35 and now 40,
Letter #1 – My Mother is not a saint Read More »
Today I threw the switch to turn on a 9 kW photovoltaic (solar) power array. I have done something good in the world. I am a proud mother. Yesterday night I was thinking about my own mother, and what to do about the non-contact I’ve imposed on our relationship. [Spoiler: I like the end of this