Read The Courage to Heal. Do all the exercises in the book.

but it is too important to take off the list.

My therapist and the book say it is important for healing to talk about the abuse that I survived, and I believe that’s true, since I am plagued with flashbacks and troubling emotions that seem obviously tied to those past traumas.

So far, I haven’t been able to bring myself to get the words out. Not out of my mouth or not on paper. I don’t know of a way to talk about it without it sounding pornographic, and I can’t bring myself to talk that way.

So it keeps me stuck.

that father’s day is almost over for another year.

again.

Have gone back to the chapter “Believing it Happened.” Strange how I can identify with each and every vignette about the experience of simultaneously believing and not believing that the incest occurred and close the book still feeling it does not apply to me. Maddening.

It this experience of having mush for reality that I think has the most far-reaching effects. I so wish to just stand on solid ground.

I am making no progress at all on this now that my husband is home all the time.

This isn’t the sort of goal I can work on unless I am absolutely alone.

Okay- I’ve had this book since I went to a lady who tests your Chakras with divining rods shortly after my breakup in January, and she recommended it (Very cool thing to have done, if you ever have the chance). Well, I finally started reading it, and I’m going to try and start the first exercise on my break today at work, and concentrate more on it when I get home. I got rid of the lose 20 lbs goal, so to concentrate on this book, and I’d rather reword that into “Getting healthier”. It sounds better, and the weight loss will come on it’s own.

Progress on this thing continues. . . slowly. In working through the book and the exercises, it’s become astonishingly clear how continually oppressed I am by Shame. So now I am off to re-re-re-read Healing the Shame that Binds You.

This healing business is hard work.

Last night I watched the movie “Georgia Rule.” I was not prepared for the subject matter. I didn’t realize it was upsetting, but now today is a hide under the covers kind of day. So that is what I am doing. At least I know why I feel this way, and I’m not doing some crazy thing to shove the feelings away.

Tomorrow will be a better day. It always is, eventually.

The assignment is still “Write about what happened to you.” I wrote for 5 minutes. Then, yesterday, I went to my therapist and asked him if he thought that was enough and I could consider the writing assignment completed. “Do you feel that it’s completed?” he asked. I gave my usual response: “I dunno.”

He then proved again why he is a great therapist. He asked, “So, five minutes. How much was that, about half a page?” I couldn’t recall, so I opened up my journal and looked. Sure enough, it was half a page. It had felt like more. “Oh yeah. Half a page. How about that.” “Well,” he said, “Do you think half a page does justice to all the years of torment that you suffered?” That one hit me right between the eyes. I looked at him and laughed.

Apparently minimizing is an issue for me. So I am still working on the assignment. To be continued.

I’ve been avoiding doing the exercise “Write about what happened to you” for weeks now. I mostly avoid doing it by forgetting to do it. Today I made progress and wrote for 5 minutes. The tremendous effort that it takes to get the words to come out of my psyche and get them onto paper says worlds about the impact these past experiences continue to have on me.

What I wrote about in those 5 minutes was how much trouble I had sleeping when I was a child, how terrified I was at night, how I’d wrap myself up mummy style, leaving just enough space for a little air and a view of the door, keep my eyes fixed on the door so I could see if anything was coming to get me, how I’d lay motionless, heart pounding, praying to survive the night. . . night after night after night, then get up in the morning and go to school to be a perfect student and make my straight A’s.

Bogging down on the writing exercise “What Happened to You.” I just keep putting it off, forgetting about it, thinking I don’t have enough proper time to write. . . avoiding it.

If I’m going to keep turning my back on myself, I should at least be honest about what I’m doing. I’m leaving myself abandoned, over and over and over again.