Tag: healing

it only takes one

My first therapist Diana Kahn has been in my thoughts every day for many years. I loved her so much. The mother/protector I never had. The outraged one, the loving one, the fierce and driven one. The one who knew well before I did how my abuse would stretch outward and through my life forever.

She was the third person I disclosed to, aged 21, the second being my beloved creative writing professor and her friend, Diane Vreuls. Today I heard that Diana Kahn had died recently. The person who wrote to tell me this was Diane Vreuls. I feel as if the wind has been knocked out of me.

The ties with these two compassionate women stretch out over 35 years, and run deep. These women, between them, saved my life. Probably literally.

Diana Kahn prepared me for living, for life. She helped me be able to love, which I have gladly and wholly done for many years now. She led me toward my best self, the one that had been overshadowed by abuse, by shame, by fear. She kept me safe. My ability to be happy, to find joy, to believe in the future — all of this, I owe to her care, her insights, her encouragement, and her love. Rest in peace, you beautiful person.

It only takes one person to act, to know and understand. To help us heal. Here’s how I write about that time, in 1985, in my memoir, Learning to Survive:

***

it only takes one

Everything cascades into new places like dominos in my final year at Oberlin College [university], albeit in a slow and observable chain. After the summer, as if nothing has happened, I return to writing classes, this time to prose, with Diane Vreuls.  

            I begin to work on a story around a young woman called Roberta, and a young man called Alex. And the parallel narrative of her past, which involves something sinister. In the copy I have, I can see that I have made copious notes for Diane – ideas for development, acknowledgments of failings. I also state that there is a ‘father story’ here, though so far it’s not reflected in the text. The notes are chirpy, well organised. 

            But I can’t finish the story. I am due to go in and see Diane, but I can’t finish the story. I change tack: a different girl, older this time, in a relationship, a different man, the ‘father story’ further in the past. And I cannot finish this one either. I have no idea where it’s going, and don’t know what I want to say. But I know I want to say something.

            Diane calls me in for a tutorial on the initial four pages. I still have the copy she hands back to me then, and at the bottom, in small red writing, are the words ‘not enough for 2 weeks’ work’. It’s clearly a mess. She looks at my pages, all of them sketchy and faint. I can see I have disappointed her. She asks me to tell her about the story. I try to talk about the girl in it, and the love that must happen between her and Alex, somehow. About the other, different story I’ve started. Diane then asks me about the ‘father story’ line. She wonders what it is doing here, really, and how it connects to the floating interludes with some ‘she’ character, and some older ‘he’ character? There is too much, way too much, she says, unsaid.

            Of course, I have no words. I don’t even know how to talk about this. I have no idea what I’m doing. Then she turns her chair, directly facing me, and says, her voice a little shaky, ‘You are trying to write the same story over and over, do you see that? And it’s not happening.’ I must nod. Then she says, ‘Is there something you need to tell me?’.

            And I tell her. I am trembling all over. As much as I can tell anyone at that stage, I tell her. I tell her what my father did. I cannot yet cry about it, but she does. She asks about therapy, and I tell her about my last experience in that grand room. She is furious, and I later find out she makes an official complaint. But for now, and immediately, she phones her friend, a therapist called Diana Kahn – right there, while I’m in the office. She asks my permission to tell Diana a little bit, and I give it. I trust her completely; I give everything over. I tell her that I have no money at all to pay for anything. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Diane says not to worry. Not to worry any more about such things, because this is far, far more important.

I see the therapist Diana the next week, and twice a week at least for the following year, reducing to once a week for another year. She is fierce, and knowing, and protective. She releases me. She saves me. She begins the deep healing. And she pursues my father for every cent of her time, finally threatening him with a lawsuit. After which, he – surprise surprise – pays up.

I have never been able properly to express my gratitude to Diane Vreuls. For her compassion, her alertness, and for the friendship and love she shows me for years after. For the phone call she makes right there and then. But I hope that at times I’ve been able to embody her and make a difference. I promised myself I would, as soon as I started teaching 30 years ago. I promised myself that I would never turn away from a student in crisis, and I believe I never have. I know from experience that some changes in life can turn on a dime. Instead, I have numerous times picked up the phone, right there and then. I have made counselling appointments, I have walked students to the doctor’s office. I have had to tell students’ parents that I think their baby is in trouble. And I tell such students – often – of my own struggles. And of how my life is now. That there’s hope. Lots of it.

I saw his face

Over the years I’ve had plenty of nightmares. Shadowy figures, fear of doors opening, lying on my back suffocating. Plenty of those. And only with the recent spate of them, in the last six months or so, have I really acknowledged that all of them are from being abused. As is the development of claustrophobia, and a profound fear of the dark, among other things.

However. Something must be shifting: the night after my last post, I dreamt directly about my abuser, my father, for the first time in my memory. We had been estranged for over 30 years when he died in 2018. In this dream though: I saw his face. I looked right at his face. And I was grown up — a 57 year old woman with some things to say.

In the dream, he was sitting down. I was determined to stand up. And I told my father everything. I railed at him. I listed every last damaging effect that his abuse had had upon me, upon my family, my relationships, my sense of self. I absolutely let him have it. I tore a strip off of him.

I wasn’t scared. At all. I felt indeed — the opposite. I felt so strong. So clear. So just and righteous. I knew I was right, and that he was wrong, and that he had always been wrong. I told him all this, right to his face.

He didn’t understand. He tried to laugh. He tried to move away from me. I followed. I wouldn’t let it go. I listed and listed, until I reached the end of my list. Then I turned and left him, and went into the next room, where my beautiful grown up children were getting on with their lives. I told them what I had just done, and they were proud of me. We had things to do, and we did them, all without my father.

When I woke up, I felt like I could take on the world. I’d left him for good, and he would never understand. He was never going to. But at last I’d said my piece.

I credit this powerful dream in no small part to starting this blog, and to being in touch with so many other survivors and allies now, all of whom are strong, inspiring, and supportive. Together we are getting things done. THANK YOU, one and all.

In my memoir Learning to Survive, there’s a section of poems written around my father’s death. This one is about the last time we spoke, on the phone, in 1986, the very last time I tried to speak to him at all:

***

the last time

I am standing

           in my first apartment

                        before marriage

                        before children

                        before the UK

                        beige carpets

                        second hand sofa

                        second hand bed

                        new cushions (three hours to choose in JC Penny’s)

                        second hand glasses and bowls

                        fiancé hovering

                        in the kitchen

                        in case

my arm aches

            from gripping the handset

hand cramped

            from squeezing too hard

you are asking me

            to meet you

                        somewhere mid-way

                        somewhere

                                    to get past this

you say

                                    we need to resolve this

                                    with our therapists

                                    and I find out later

                                    that yours wants

                                    a Gestalt model

                                    which suits you fine

                                    conflict-resolution

                                    where both parties are responsible

                                    I wonder

                                                not for the first time

                                    if you have told her

                                                anything like the truth –

I say

                                    heart always pounding

                                    always shaking inside

                                    always swallowing fear

I say

                                    you are the perpetrator

                                    I am the victim

and

                                    you laugh

                                                you chuckle

you say

                                    you’ve been reading

                                    too many magazines

                                    you don’t know

                                    what you’re talking about

I stand there

            trembling

I want to hurt you

            like I am hurting

I try to think

            how to show you

                                    how important

                                    how vital

                                    how crucial

                                    this is

I say

                                    if you don’t do this

                                    my way

                                    my rules:

                                    you will never see your grandchildren

and

                                    you laugh again

you laugh

                                    but you never do

                                    see them

Zip

My habit – borne of self preservation no doubt – is to slam a metal shutter down, shut up shop, whenever I sense my mind or emotions edging toward remembering my abuse. It’s only natural I guess. I have become expert at shifting focus, blocking out some things, moving at speed toward others.

Only recently have I accepted that this urge in itself perpetuates damage. It keeps secrets. It tells no one. It suffers in silence.

The difficulty with allowing these memories to surface, to speak them, is that it can feel like I’m giving in. Giving in to the bleak reality that like it or not abuse has etched itself across my life, my day to day living. I’m so angry about this, angry on behalf of my child self who could not get angry: GO AWAY! I want it all to go away.

But try as I might, my triggers – my reminders – cut straight through whatever defences I have raised. And always have done. Regardless of what I want or hope for, they find their way in, just as my abuser did. They are with me daily.

And it turns out that they will never go away. It turns out that healing does not banish memories. Healing means that we learn to speak without risking our lives, without the implosion that silence brings. It’s not a fair trade, these daily reminders. Living with them is hard, and a cruelty. And none of it is our fault.

From my memoir Learning to Survive:

***

Zip

Because of you, it is years until I can bear the sound of one, or the feel of polyester.

            There are many things like this: flaky skin, a backrub.

            Some types of brown shoes. Checked shirts with white backgrounds. Thin cotton pyjamas. The feel of beards and moustaches. Teeth yellowed by cigarettes. Slightly pudgy fingers.

            Sleeping in the dark.

            Any soft caress, from anyone.

            Any romantic kindness. Any kiss on the lips.

            Any sign of desire. Any sigh.

Most of the time now I brace myself; most things surge and fade. Except for the dark: that panic never goes away.

***