Tag: Learning to Survive

paying the price

Over on Twitter (X now, yuck) I’ve been in conversation with writer and activist Elizabeth Shane about hypervigilance. I suspect that this kind of alertness to surroundings, to approaching/imagined danger is extremely common in survivors, if not universal.

I explore how hypervigilance affects so many areas of my life in another post, on expecting disaster.

In this same post, I mention that my elder son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. This happened when he was 12. My hypervigilance meant that he was never in danger (unlike so many at diagnosis) — but this reality did not stop me from the crashing feeling that somehow I had not done enough: I had not kept him safe from harm.

When E was diagnosed, my world collapsed. I remember leaving him in hospital and coming home that first night, sobbing uncontrollably into his pillow. This remains the sharpest and most wrenching grief I have ever experienced. I remember what I was feeling: how can this happen when I have tried so hard? I have made it through everything life handed to me — why make my boy suffer too? I knew beyond doubt that he would suffer. That he was watching his life change on a dime, forever, and there was nothing any of us could do about it.

Type 1 diabetes is a life-threatening, completely life-changing, autoimmune condition. Developing it has nothing to do with diet or environment; the propensity is likely hard-wired, which means that it’s inevitable in some people. Type 1 is most often diagnosed in young people, and there are millions of families around the globe who face this particular grief — the grief of their child losing a carefree life, losing aspects of their childhood. From then on, every bit of food, every outing — and for several years, every night — is dominated by blood sugar readings, 24/7. From that moment, we could never just ‘jump in the car’ or ‘just go for a walk’. Everything had to be planned. Everything changed. This is the way it is for every family. It’s an intense, encompassing grief for the life we can never have again.

Four years later, also at age 12, our second son evidenced another chronic condition, hEDS (which, it turns out, I have too). He suffered an intractable knee dislocation which sent him miles in an ambulance to the hospital, having to bear excruciating pain. For eight years afterward, until we located a good surgeon, he lurched from crisis to crisis, emergency to emergency, pain to pain. As is common, he has numerous other chronic co-morbidities from hEDS. His life too had been turned upside down. Again: I had hoped to have one child with an ‘unencumbered’ life — but this was not to be. It took a long time for me to accept that I couldn’t ‘save’ him either, that I couldn’t make everything better. Let me at least make his life lighter.

I had wanted my own early suffering to be worth something. To matter. I wanted those difficult years to ‘count’ in the balancing out of Good and Bad. I had endured the Bad; surely now my children were due the Good?

The truth is: there are no scales of justice. Living through abuse does not mean that later life will be free of more bad luck. There is no such thing as ‘getting what you deserve’. Life doesn’t work like that, either for good or ill. We all know that finding our way through the lifelong damage of abuse is not counterbalanced by our abusers suffering in kind. The huge majority of abusers are never brought to account, either formally or informally. Whereas we, we all know, continue to pay the price they never pay.

When first one then the other of my two children had to face their life-long disabilities, I had to face that the neglect and sexual abuse of my early life did not somehow secure their wellbeing. I had to face that life never was and never has been fair. And that I had suffered for no apparent reason. For a long time, this realisation tore me apart. I had so wanted — so wanted — everything now, after my childhood and young life — to be just fine. To have borne what I did so I could accumulate Good Things for the future.

Over time I guess that I have learned — we have learned — to live with injustice, to navigate it. It’s been a necessary lesson. To value where we are now — rather than look for a time when we will be free of all this. None of us have had it ‘easy’, whatever that means. (I tend to think no one has it ‘easy’.) But somehow, through everything, we have cultivated genuine love. Genuine kindness. Genuine and fierce ties that bind us together, even when stretched over thousands of miles. I’m proud of us. The cost at times still feels immense — the grief bottomless, the suffering of no real use — but we got here, and for that I will be forever grateful.

claustrophobia

My dear friend came to visit recently. After many years of knowing each other and being close as writers — we discovered only a few years ago that we are both CSA (Child Sexual Abuse) survivors. This was a shock to us both: keeping secrets, keeping abuse ‘over there’ is hard-wired in both of us. But we have come to know that much connects us, and that in a way this is cause for celebration. Despite our pasts, we have compassion, we have empathy. We have humour, and love.

This time we ended up alighting upon something I didn’t know she had as well: a violent reaction to feeling enclosed.

I’m curious: do most or all survivors experience this? I cannot bear the sensation of feeling enclosed, or struggling to swallow, or reaching for air. This means that last year when I had tonsillitis I was in a terrible, panicked state. Max sat with me, holding my hand, distracting me by watching sitcoms. I was barely with it. Tears of desperation squeezed out of my eyes with every breath.

Every time a duvet climbs above my shoulders I am panicky and shove it away. I almost always sleep with my arms out of the covers. I also find elevators (lifts) very difficult, especially small ones. I struggle with spiral staircases, and have had more than one serious panic attack while climbing them. I am physically disoriented very easily, and launch into a full blown panic attack when this happens. Whether in IKEA, or once in an observatory when the ceiling rotated — when I don’t know or remember how to ‘escape’ from someplace, I melt down.

My friend is the same. Almost exactly the same. We figured there must be something about being overpowered. About a large person hovering and smothering. About not being able to fight.

One of the first realisations I had in my early therapy was the fact that I wanted to push my father away. My arms ached with that realisation. But I never did. I was frozen, frightened, dissociated.

These triggers — phobias, fears, whatever you call them — are all collateral damage. Ripples from abuse. All of the above responses are valid, as are many more. They are normal trauma responses. Yet both of us have at times been made to feel deficient: buck up, be brave, there’s nothing wrong!

There’s a lot wrong when you are in fear for your life. When you think the breath will be squeezed out of you. When things are forced into your mouth and you can’t breathe. When you are a child and can’t bear the weight, the intrusion. These are the facts. They never go away.

We must respect trauma responses. We need to be trauma-informed. It is often NOT possible to ‘overcome’ these responses, and it’s a myth to believe everyone can. We all have to work with what we carry around the best we can. For survivors, these tangled and deeply embedded responses are unavoidable at times.

For me this means I almost always avoid lifts. For me this means I ask the dentist to raise the head of the chair closer to sitting, and have to ‘go someplace else’ when x-ray plates are in my mouth. For me this means I am always verging on panic when in a crowd.

My family know these things and accept them. They know where these responses come from. With time and recognition of these triggers, I am less compromised by them than I used to be. For me, speaking my ‘truth’ — admitting that I’m frightened, admitting that I’m disoriented and having to control my breathing — eases my panic, and often prevents it from escalating to the point where I can’t be reached. These issues don’t go away — but they have less sway over me.

This won’t work for everyone, clearly. Sometimes we are surrounded by people who refuse to understand, or whom we don’t trust, or with whom we don’t feel safe enough to show we are feeling vulnerable. I know I am very lucky. Without even realising it consciously, I landed on my feet when it comes to close family and friends.

Regardless of how memories manifest with you or with your loved ones, acceptance goes a long way. Lack of judgment goes a long way. Saying ‘it’s alright’ to feel this way, to react, goes a long way. Because next time the panic might not be quite as overwhelming. Regardless of the trigger: being seen and believed and supported can help dismantle these suffocating walls.

fear & sacrifice

I’ve been thinking a lot about fear. When I look back over my life (59 years of it), fear figures heavily.

I begin my life being afraid for my mother. I fear for her wellbeing, I fear her not being there. I fear her attempting to end her life again. I also fear, I know now, her anger and lashing out. These fears last until she dies of natural causes, two years ago.

These early fears of course set up later fears. I fear being ‘sent away’ (as I was from my mother). I interpret this fear, over time, as fear of loss. Losing people. Losing what I have. Whatever that may be. Because fundamentally (I tell myself), something is always better than nothing. And ‘nothing’ is ‘the abyss’ — I have been too close to that too often. Anything is better than that.

This hard-wired fear means that living my life feels conditional. That somehow the security of the life I lead is entirely dependent on me preserving some version of the status quo. Depends on me ‘being good’. Eventually, I will do anything to keep from ‘making trouble’.

These fears are handy for my father, my abuser. He no doubt knows that I will not say a word. There is zero chance that I will ‘rock the boat’ in any way. Because I’m terrified of the abyss which lies beyond ‘raising a fuss’. As in my young childhood with my mother, I continue to believe there is literally no one to go to. No one. So it’s all down to me.

I find, in time, that I ensure my father is not discovered in my bedroom. I work hard to behave ‘normally’. I work hard to keep him away from my friends, my sister, or once, my cousin. I think I know how to play this game. I know I can play it. I know I can keep it secret. I know I can manage it without (I think) losing everything else. I believe that no one but me knows the scale of the loss that might happen if I crack. Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I deliberately and systematically decide to protect everyone else — in the family, in my circle of friends, at school or ballet — and endure whatever I have to. I need to protect everyone. In doing so, and unknowingly, I end up sacrificing myself in so many ways.

I still find it hard not sacrifice myself when the ‘going gets tough’. Sometimes it still feels like ‘one slip and everything will be lost’. And rather than lose everything, I choose to endure anything: I can bear anything, anything at all. Try me.

It’s been a relief in the last few years to accept that the world turns with me or without me. To relieve myself of the constant High Alert state I have lived in nearly my whole life.

We all find our messy ways along our paths, me included. But this doesn’t mean we are lost. It means, on the contrary, that we are in this together.

hope is a powerful thing

[photo by: my brother]

My husband and I married 35 years ago today: 25 June, 1988. His mother, who died within the year, took it upon herself to arrange everything — here, in the UK. It was what I wanted, and I don’t regret it for a moment. There were people in my family who were not happy to have everything elsewhere, across the ocean etc… But I knew it was right. From the beginning, I was welcomed into R’s large family as one of them. This has remained the case for over 35 years now.

I knew about ten people at my wedding. There were 120 in attendance. It took place in St John’s Cathedral, Norwich, and honestly — it was like a dream. A fantastic dream. There are photos of me being fed soup in my dress. Photos of us, R and I, sailing back down the aisle so fast, so happy, that I remember the bridesmaids literally clattering after us. Astounding day. First day of the rest of my life.

We have been through troubles — who hasn’t? — but throughout, we have been together. We have made the commitment, again and again, to be together. My models — surprise surprise — were my grandparents, married for 72 years. R comes from a family where all of the marriages — all of them — are long-lived. We figured out how to do this, through trial and error, through commitment, and through a deep and abiding love. We are lucky; we are soulmates. This was clear from the start.

I wouldn’t have made it through the difficulties in my life without R. I’m not sure I would have survived. Because of him, and our children, I emerge hopeful over and over. This has been a constant. Nothing — and no one — can destroy us. Not even the memory, and the surging triggers, of my father’s abuse.

Here is an excerpt from my memoir Learning to Survive, set in Oberlin, Ohio, where we went to the College and the music Conservatory. The children cringe whenever I mention this. But every word is true. This is really what happened. This is how R and I got together. There was no question, no questioning, at all. We both knew, in the same moment, that this was it.

***

2.

Around this time I am sleeping with a pianist I’ll call Sam. We are very companionable. We have been friends in fact for a while, have friends in common, so the relationship is much more ‘out in the open’ than is usual for me up until then. We do things together, eat together, spend actual nights together. I don’t feel it will last, and I don’t think he does either, but for the moment we are okay.

            After a while it dawns on me that I am a bit distracted from Sam. He has a British friend called R, and the three of us become close, eating at least one meal, if not two or three, together every day. R is a composer. He is dark, tall and handsome, rather tortured, smokes too much, and is way – I think – out of my league. I do remember one instance of watching him walk by Sam and me in the campus diner, and knowing pretty starkly then that I was probably with the wrong guy. R however is seeing a beautiful – stunning – cellist, one who has visited his family even, and so of course I shut that thought down quick. His friendship, our friendship, feels too important to risk.

            In the event however Sam does us all a favour, though it doesn’t feel like that at the time: he sleeps with another woman. He has the good grace to tell me about it, and we break up. In hindsight, I know I was ready to. By this point too, R has broken up with the cellist, much to my surprise.

            It is December 1985, and I have just started therapy. I have let go, quickly, of a lot of baggage. I don’t know what’s next, but I watch it go, slide away, the useless stuff. I feel more alone, more vulnerable – but also stronger. Already, I know I am finding my way toward a life I want, instead of surviving in a life I don’t want.

            It can’t be more than a few days after Sam and I break up that I find I need to see R. I don’t know why. I don’t question it. I just need to see him. I miss him.

            We live about three streets apart – him on the broader Lorain Street, and me along a smaller, back road.

            I go out into the night. And it’s snowing, heavily. The ground and the roads are already covered. I start out with the intention of making it to his house – the first place to check – and it takes some time to work my way up the shallow incline toward Lorain Street. When I reach the intersection I look up. There are no cars out, and the snow has silenced everything. Across the road I see a figure, a dark tall one, without a hat on, in a long, dark, open coat. He starts to cross over to me, and I over to him. We meet in the middle of the street.

            ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ I say.

            ‘And I’ve been looking for you,’ he says. I see the white snowflakes gathering on his overgrown black hair. He reaches for my hands, his fingers so cold in their fingerless gloves, even through my own gloves. ‘Surely,’ he says, ‘this must be real.’

            We really are standing in the middle of the street, in the snow. It really does happen like this. Nearly thirty-eight years ago, and together ever since.

That first night, we find shelter in the Conservatory of Music, in a practice room with a piano. We stand there, and kiss. I know, almost immediately, that this is it. That together we can do this. I trust him.

            That first night, we don’t sleep together. This feels important. In fact, we don’t sleep together for weeks and weeks, not until February, when we are back from Christmas and January terms away. Once we do, we never spend a night apart, and by June, we have moved in together.

Father’s Day (UK)

My first father, and the father who never harmed me, was my grandfather. That’s us in the photo. I’m three years old, and we are in Luling, Texas. My parents were divorced when I was just a few months old. In this photo, I hadn’t met my father yet. I don’t know whether I’m leaving my grandparents’ care to go back and live with my mother, or whether I am joining my grandparents to live with them for a while, leaving my mother to her instabilities and mental illnesses. I traveled both ways, often, up until age six.

My grandfather is holding both of my hands here. My face has faded with time, but his remains strong, in focus. Out of shot here I am pointing my foot forward in my saddle shoes, as if I am foreshadowing the decades of dance I would start only a few years later.

In hard times, I still channel Granddaddy for comfort, hearing his voice in my head. He died over 20 years ago now, but I can still hear him — quietly spoken, always giving me strength and belief.

Why, you’re not going to let a little thing like that stop you, are you? he would say, no matter what;

and

We’re rooting for you! even over the telephone, often at the end of our conversations;

and

You can do anything you set your mind to.

Both of my grandparents were the solid centres of my whole life. I carry their words and actions with me, always, and miss them, honestly, daily.

Happy Father’s Day, Granddaddy. Love you always and forever.

***

What I’m saying here too is that I cannot consider my biological father my father. I cannot begin to put him in the place where Father’s Day happens. He was my abuser, and although that’s not all he was (any more than being a survivor is all I am), his abuse of me when I was a child — sexual, psychological, emotional — far overshadows any good which he may have done as a father in my life in other ways.

Child Sexual Abuse is not just the crimes themselves. CSA is insidious, pervading, and tarnishes every aspect of your relationship with your abuser (and too often, everyone). My father’s actions and decisions made him not-my-father. Forever. I never hear his voice anymore. Once I got rid of it, it was gone for good.

***

Here are two excerpts from Learning to Survive, my memoir about neglect, CSA, living through it all and with it. The first is about my life with Granddaddy, the second about my father.

***

1.

I go everywhere with them. Granddaddy takes me out in the pick-up truck, sometimes even in the back if I promise not to move around too much. He drives around the block so I can feel the wind in my hair. For longer journeys, though, I sit next to him in the cab. Together we go to the hardware store, the gardening shop, the fishing tackle store. I inspect tiny drawers full of screws and nuts and bolts, and once, lots of extravagant fishing flies lined up on the counter. It’s not my world, but with Granddaddy in his overalls, his hand around mine, or often, his hands resting on my shoulders, I get a peek at it.

It is Granddaddy who sets up the swing and slide in the backyard, and who builds a sandbox around the bottom of a tree for me. Outside, it is always hot and wet, but with Granddaddy working next to me, I play. The chameleons on the house fascinate me; I stand completely still, just waiting for one to run from the green grass to the red wall so I can watch it change colour. In the front, together we see the squirrels fussing in the tall trees, running through the thick spiky grass. I sit on the front step and watch him mow, watch our neighbours mow their front yards, the hands they raise to one another. And always, should anyone stop to talk, my grandfather waves me over, rests a hand on me: ‘This is our granddaughter,’ he says, ‘come to stay with us for a while.’ And whoever it is, sensing something, or maybe just liking what he sees, says, ‘Well isn’t that nice. Isn’t that nice for you?’ And my grandfather, with a little squeeze, says, ‘It sure is.’

2.

After the age of 11, I cannot remember a single decent time with my father. That is, one that isn’t inflected with fear, or repulsion, wondering what his next move will be. Wondering how he will exploit any moment to bring me closer to him, to be with him, later. As I look back, I think I may experience some moments of joy, in theory – like listening to music with him, peering through a telescope, arriving at the correct answer to a maths problem together – but none of them exist separately for long. I cannot tease them apart from everything else; I cannot make them stand up against the steadily rising tide of distress and fear. They become meaningless.            

So I forget them all. I forget any possibility of good in him, and it never comes back. That room, like so many, is entirely empty.

trying to stay in the saddle

[image: the Osmington White Horse]

It has been SO LONG since I’ve been here. As with everything, then the guilt of NOT doing something accumulates, and then there’s so much water under the bridge that… the task becomes impossible. Or feels it.

However. It is not like me to stop something or give up. There are lots of reasons — some of which I’ll post about here — why I keep repeating this to myself. Never give up.

First: the really fab news that I hinted about last time. Way back in March of this year, 30,000 words from my memoir about Child Sexual Abuse (Learning to Survive) won Highly Commended in the Bridport Memoir Awards. Soon after, I discovered that there were about 1,000 entries. Top 5 out of 1,000 entries. It has been such a joy, a real lift, to have my work validated and valued in such a competition. One of the HUGE blocks to getting stories of CSA out is the resistance of the ‘mainstream’ (whatever form that takes — whether media, arts, medicine) to hearing about these stories. Those of you who circulate in this world of survivors know all too well: the ‘mainstream’ is hugely more likely to draw back than to bear witness, or listen, or support. The ‘mainstream’, generally, turns away.

My prize in the Bridport felt like the beginning of something — at last! I have been struggling for two years to get a bit of purchase for Learning to Survive. My frustration has always been: I have published five books, one of them prize winning, and my work has been collected in various high profile national anthologies, published in newspapers etc. So WHY — why?! — is this book, a book I know is worthwhile and sound and well-written — staggering through almost universal rejection from literally dozens of potential outlets? The Bridport win gave me hope that the book may now be championed — despite the lack of precedent in the publishing world for stories such as mine (as OURS) — hope that someone may be willing now to take a risk.

Second, and alas, it’s clear now that the Bridport accolade has made little difference to the book’s future, at least in the UK. As a result of the Bridport however I have met some wonderful people, people cheering me on, people who — alongside me — are shocked that I’ve not been able to place the book. I’ve also been in touch with some of the judges/readers of the Bridport for advice from within ‘the industry’: from each, the writing is lauded (more than my writing has ever been lauded before, just for comparison), the subject acknowledged as important and vital, my handling of it ‘just right’…. but these effusive compliments are mitigated with ‘the subject is too dark to sell’, ‘maybe child sexual abuse has been done to death’ — etc. In other words: great writing, but the material itself is unpalatable. It’s scary. It’s ‘too much’ for readers. Not worth the risk for publishers. I want to scream what about memoirs about the Holocaust? What about memoirs about domestic violence? Murder? Grief? They exist, and they are ‘dark subjects’; they are horrifying and difficult. Yet somewhere along the line, someone has considered them important enough to be in circulation. Important enough to learn about, to witness. Not so Child Sexual Abuse, clearly.

I have indulged in a couple of threads on Twitter around these responses. Here, in short:

1) CSA affects at least 15% of the population, of ALL adults and children. THERE’S your readership publishers, not to speak of the millions of people who love, support, and care for survivors. It’s a huge audience, ready-made, an audience in dire need of stories which speak to their experiences. Which break the awful silence and shame, which raise social awareness. Which comfort and support, which tell them they are not alone, that there is a future for them and all of us.

2) Child Sexual Abuse has absolutely NOT been ‘done to death’. What we do hear a lot about are ‘serial’ pedophiles such as Savile, Maxwell, Epstein. What we do hear about are ‘monster narratives’ about ‘evil people’. We read about abuse that happens ‘over there’, that is NOT in our lives. We do not read about intra-familial CSA, or CSA perpetrated by someone the child knows. Which makes up 90% of all CSA. We do not read about abusive fathers, uncles, grandfathers, brothers, babysitters, boyfriends, carers. We do not read about the most common form of CSA, that which happens in our lives, right under our noses.

3) There is a clear moral imperative to publicise these stories. Given that there are millions of survivors in the UK alone, and thousands of millions of survivors around the world. Given that these victims and survivors are — wholesale, forcibly — drowning in silence. Given that most survivors of ‘everyday’ CSA believe that they are pretty much the only victims of this in the world. That they are alone in their trauma and loss and shame. Given all this, survivors surely deserve better. There is only one literary memoir published in the UK about CSA (by Clare Best), and only a very few in Europe and Australia. We deserve more. We deserve to be seen. We deserve to be included in the long list of wrongs which need righting in our world.

4) Finally: it’s insulting to label anyone’s suffering as ‘too dark’ for general consumption. Particularly if that suffering is widespread, or ultimately turned toward doing good. My book and writings, and the work of so many other survivors, exist with the explicit aims of relieving suffering and of prevention. Of reaching out, empowering, and bringing strength and hope. All of the abuse in my book is finished by 30,000 words in. The rest of the book — 35,000 words — is about survival, hope, and living.

***

I could go on. Fortunately, as you can see, my anger has returned. Anger turned inward is sadness and depression, and I admit that I have been battling these consequences over the last couple of months. I am silenced AGAIN. We are silenced AGAIN. It’s painful, re-traumatising, and heartbreaking.

I am holding on to the belief that things may be shifting. Slowly, granted, but shifting. There are hundreds of us doing work around CSA in the UK alone, and much of it makes forays into the mainstream. Recently, Channel 4 aired a documentary which told Emily’s story: her father was her abuser. Recently too, Nicole Caroli featured in the Metro newspaper — telling her story and raising awareness. (Nicole also runs an excellent blog, here.) Sophie Olson’s (The Flying Child’s) ‘Last Taboo’ Radio 4 programme, aired nearly two years ago, continues to break down barriers, as does her work with schools, midwives, social workers, etc (Sophie’s blog is here). The glorious and indefatigable Viv Gordon continues her moving performances and showcasing of fellow survivors, championing the necessity of their work. Elizabeth Shane publishes poetry and devotes her time to supporting and speaking up for survivors. Jane Chevous at Survivors Voices and Antonia Sobocki of LOUDfence (also at Survivors Voices) are frankly astonishing in their breadth and dedication to raising awareness and holding others to account in the world of CSA.

There are many more. We are forces to be reckoned with, and there are lots of us.

Many activist/survivors are old hands at this. They know the battles and are not giving up. I’m very new here. And the stark nature of these battles has hit hard. The reality that CSA is drenched in stigma and silence, at every turn, regardless of external validation and the accompanying shocking statistics around CSA — still, in the 21st century! — has hit hard. The fact that my book seems not to stand a chance in this country due to social attitudes toward something that has nothing to do with me — that was not my fault, that I did not choose, that I wish more than anything had never happened — has hit hard. Once again, I’ve had to face that none of this is my fault. Yet I still suffer the consequences.

Saying all this: I cannot give up. I won’t give up. I am able to speak when so many cannot. It really is that simple. I’m back on the horse, with my sights now turned to the US market. I welcome any tips, advice, leads. Something has to give.

post-traumatic growth

This photo of me was taken a few weeks ago by the same brilliant photographer who shot E and A’s wedding last summer (Hannah Hall Beddoe/Cuts the Mustard). I have known for a while that I needed new author photos, as the wonderful ones I had (by friend Nancy Wilson Fulton) were over 10 years old.

After discovering that my work was shortlisted in the Bridport Memoir Awards this year, I needed author photos urgently. I’ll say more about the awards in the next post, but suffice it to say I’m thrilled to bits. Child Sexual Abuse reaching the top five in an international, open competition. This is a win no matter what.

But back to the photos. I went to see Hannah of Cuts the Mustard because I trusted her. She was in the Lakes (six hour drive from here), so a bit of a haul over a weekend, but I knew I couldn’t go to a stranger. Especially a man. That was not ever going to happen.

In the couple of weeks which followed the shoot, I tried to identify my feelings. The process of doing them had felt harder than I anticipated. I felt on the spot. I felt awkward. And at some point, I realised that I felt scrutinised. Not, I hasten to say, by Hannah — but by the camera itself somehow. I tied myself into a knot trying to appear ‘normal’, all the while feeling so very ‘different’.

It’s not rocket science to figure out what is going on here. Being forced to appear ‘normal’, to perform, when really so much is NOT normal under the surface. Really you want to run away forever.

To Hannah’s enormous credit, I began, as the session went on, to see the person behind the camera for who she is: a friendly face, a face which means me no harm, a face which believes in me. Hannah knows my history, and I began to think ‘oh, just be how you are every day’ — she likes you! You like her!

The shoot improved exponentially partway through. I can identify when I began to ‘risk’ showing myself. I realised she wasn’t going to use anything against me. That I did not need to hide.

Because that’s what my father would do. Swoop into any show of my ‘true self’, try to weasel his way in, try to ‘steal’ it — or so it felt. So I learned to hide the way I felt, nothing showing on my face. I learned to live with scrutiny, with my father seeming to examine my face, my movements, for anything he could bring up later, in my bedroom, that night. Anything to get ‘closer’ to me.

At some point, in my teens, while the abuse was still going on, my father took pictures of me. They are not explicit pictures, but they are agonising nonetheless. They look grown up, so focused on me, the camera’s cold gaze. I was frozen, yet required to be ‘relaxed’. A child forced into grown up poses. Thinking about it now, I feel just sick, sick to my stomach.

Somehow, these experiences led to me being convinced that I do not, under any circumstances, ‘take a good picture’. My children and husband are ‘photogenic’. I am not. I have felt this way for as long as I can remember.

When the photos come through from Hannah though, I am gobsmacked. And elated. There, on the page, in so many photos, I am myself. I recognise me. My husband recognises me, seeing in my movements and expressions so much that is ‘typical’. I look: yes, I am happy with that kind of ‘typical’. I am happy with how I guess I must appear to the world. This is me.

I have always hated representations of myself. They feel so far away from my nebulous idea of ‘me’. I harboured a fear in fact that I always looked fake, that there was always some of kind of ‘wall’ between my interior self and my external appearance, and never the twain shall meet. I honestly had zero idea that these photos could be ‘me’ in the world. But my friends and family assure me that they are.

So what happened? How did I arrive here? Later, I spoke with my good friend Clare Best (another CSA survivor) about this. It turns out that she wrote a blog post herself about having author photos taken — by her son in this instance — and how this led to a sense of growth, of being more rather than less grounded, connecting with the self in profound ways.

Clare mentioned the idea of ‘post traumatic growth’. I’d never heard of it. But reading up on it: this is clearly what has happened to me, in particular ways, over time. The latest one being finding my way through being photographed, and experiencing it differently than ever before. There is a part of me that might have turned away completely from having these photos taken. I did find it gruelling at first, extremely emotionally challenging. But at some point, unawares, I grew past/through the initial, old trauma. I can now see that I have done this a number of times in my life, around very specific things. It is patently obvious that PTG is by no means the inevitable outcome (‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ — NO!), nor should there (as the above linked article is careful to point out) ever be an expectation or imposed narrative of certainty around PTG happening. Because we all know that there are some things about having been abused which will always remain raw — different things for different people — but forever traumatic and triggering. It’s just that for me, surprisingly, being photographed is now not one of them.

Last night we went out to dinner to celebrate the Bridport prize. My husband took a picture of me in front of some nice food, to send to the kids. He showed it to me — ‘you won’t let me send this, will you?’ After 37 years together, he is prepared! But I looked at it and thought: nah, I don’t care. Send it! So he did.

***

The following excerpt from my memoir LEARNING TO SURVIVE, recounts being scrutinised by my father. This particular event happened when I was over 18, but it is one of many such occurrences throughout my teen years.

***

That same summer, the household in Blacksburg acquires a set of weights and some gym mats. They are in the basement, in the half of the downstairs sitting room which has never been used for much. After a serious knee dislocation during a modern dance rehearsal at Oberlin College, I am in rehab, building my leg muscles, generally getting back into shape, and I use the weights every other day, doing sit-ups and stretches as well. When he’s home, my father comes downstairs to watch me. He says he is learning about weights, and smiles, laughs a half-laugh. But I know he’s simply coming down here to look at me. When [my stepmother] comes home, he quickly gets to his feet, goes upstairs.

            Encounters like this are common, I realise now. From age 11, when the abuse starts, right up until the last time I see him, at age 21, every time we are alone he behaves as if I am party to a secret, a secret between us. He behaves, I realise now, as if we are actually in a secret relationship. As if external forces ‘keep us apart’, but we still ‘long’ for each other.

            For me of course, nothing could be further from the truth. He repels me, disgusts me. His laugh, his hands rubbing together, fingers clasping. His physical awkwardness. I have a hard time being around him at all. I have no wish ever to see him again. Yet: here I am. Here is the family. Here is Blacksburg. Here is where I grew up.

            What I struggle to accept now is my tolerance of the situation. How do I not storm out and never come back? How do I eat in the same room? How do I smile? How do I breeze in and out every day? Secrecy, I guess, is hard to break the surface of. It holds firm, membranous and tough, despite the liquid chaos underneath.

            And I suppose, if I’m honest, a part of me still hopes. I hope that all of this will pass, and I know that some part of me is strong enough to last until it does. I continue to hope – for years – that he will change. That he will seek help in the ways that perpetrators I later witness are forced to seek help. I know – deeply and with real regret – that everything about his attitude to his relationship with me is wrong. What takes me so many years to do is give up on him. Give up on the family, give up on [my stepmother]. And it’s this giving up which brings lasting pain, to this day.

celebrations

We have had a really lovely ten days in our household: one ‘child’ and partner with us for Christmas, and the other and his wife surprising us with a visit from the US tomorrow. I have loved every moment of stringing fairy lights, having sherry (yes, my American and elsewhere readers: it’s a thing, and a very good thing), eating good food, going on some walks, and opening some presents.

Overall, and as is the pattern for years now: we are so relaxed, so easy, so loving and full of good humour.

In the last few months, I’ve had a couple of Twitter conversations about celebrations in families where Child Sexual Abuse was a feature. My own memories of Christmases, birthdays, Thanksgivings, etc are opaque. I remember them — such as they were — as fraught times, tense times. Never daring to put a foot wrong, say the wrong thing — or worse, attract the ‘wrong’ kind of attention, whatever that might be.

My family was not violent. I remember one tap on my bottom my whole childhood. There was no corporal punishment of any sort, ever.

Yet I was afraid. All the time. And especially at celebrations, which seemed by their nature to threaten to spin out of control. And I was certainly afraid of anything out of the usual routine. Anything I could not predict. Because that unpredictability might lead to more abuse — out of sight, under others’ celebrating noses. Anything different just seemed to produce an opportunity for my father. Maybe it was the enforced proximity — more chances to strike? I don’t know. I know I tried anything and everything to avoid being alone with him. Mostly — I think — this involved always being around other people, always talking (so that I would be missed if not there, perhaps?), and always volunteering to help.

I remember almost nothing tangible about the 11 Christmases I spent with my larger family. I only remember one present, one that didn’t happen: I remember desperately wanting an opal necklace one Christmas. When it came to it, my stepmother received an opal necklace, and I did not. I was cut to the quick, and knew even then, age 13 or 14, that someone was putting me ‘in my place’. I had bookmarked the page in the catalogue and everything…. But I didn’t get the opal.

I was a child my father abused, and claimed to be in love with, most nights. But I wasn’t his wife. Someone — whoever bought the opal — was telling me that. I knew this of course, but the icy isolation of this punishment made me feel like it was all my fault: I was being punished for having his attention, no matter that I didn’t want it. It somehow seemed the natural order of things that I be ‘frozen out’ of Christmas celebrations.

As for birthdays and Thanksgivings, I think I’m right in remembering we barely celebrated them. No birthday parties. And no Thanksgivings? Can this be right?

It is as if — in my waking, daily life — every effort was made so that I NOT feel special. It worked. In my daily life I felt almost invisible at home, unimportant, damped down. Yet my father claimed otherwise at night.; he sought me out, he gave me gifts, he said he ‘loved’ me. In the day I felt punished, ignored. At night I wanted nothing more than for the attention to stop.

With all of the abuse and twisted loyalties going on in our household — against the background of that — I can’t seem to settle in myself how much of this bleakness, fear, tension, is actually ‘normal’ in families around celebrations. What do the children in ‘ordinary’ families feel? Do they have fun? Or are they always worried? Do they like being around grownups? Or are they just waiting for it all to be over?

Once again, I have no bearings when it comes to any of this. I have no idea how much conflict is to be expected around celebrations and holiday times. All I know is that I dreaded trying to find my way through it, all the while trying to avoid my father. I even hated it anytime he spoke directly to me in front of anyone else, family or not. My fear of him ‘giving it away’ by too much attention, and how that would shame me, was profound. My ‘double life’ was completely entrenched.

And yet: were these tensions actually present? Were they able to be perceived by others? Or were they all ‘in my head’? It’s so easy to fall into believing that I’m making something out of ‘nothing’, much like how my unspoken fears around the first steps of my father’s grooming and abuse were waved away: it’s no big deal, it’s ‘natural’, ‘I’m just preparing you for when you are older’.

In other words: what you feel isn’t real.

It is so so hard to believe your feelings again after such gaslighting. Even harder to stretch your perceptions back in time, and believe those feelings are accurate reflections of how things were generally in those years, and how we did Christmas. I just don’t know. Those years feel so emptied, the cold wind whipping through them, that every last bit of warmth, of possible care, blew away long ago. I don’t know what to think.

I am relieved and proud that my grown up family and friends — our celebrations — are authentic. I trust that now. But to get here, I had to start from scratch, had to learn over and over that that there was nothing secret going on, nothing unsaid. I had to start over, and did.

the cost of immobility

On the advice of my consultant, I’ve been forced into ‘complete rest’ recently. Somehow my lower back started acting up, and six weeks later not only is it not recovered, but I keep ‘setting it off’. It’s a rollercoaster.

As a consequence of my indeterminate (thus far) back issue, I haven’t been to dance or do hydrotherapy in weeks. Complete rest for me is extremely difficult. I am used to just throwing myself into things, and my body coping. The advantage of being strong and bendy is that I’ve always been able to do virtually anything without any serious consequences. I always get injuries, yes, but they clear up more or less in a few weeks. Now I am finding that things simply aren’t healing; my chronic pain has escalated, and it seems that my early arthritis (common with hEDS) is impacting everything.

So. What of mobility?

I have mentioned before here my reliance on dance as a way of shifting trauma. Dance has always been the way that I manage to stay in touch with my body — not disassociate, be grounded, be meditative, etc.

Free movement in my environment has been crucial to my mental health for decades, and, probably more than anything else, preserves my wellbeing and my belief in the future.

I noticed when I had my hip replacement operations that within a couple of weeks I felt low. Everything seemed to stop. I felt paralysed, unable to help myself. Useless. But each time, I knew the end was in sight: slowly slowly I began to move again. I had goals. I did physio diligently. And in each case, I was walking well by six weeks post-op.

My current situation is different however. The end of my immobility is not in sight. The cause of this pain and reactivity is unknown. It’s not clear that I will dance again, though I will do everything in my power to get there. I have no exercises to do, no agency in this. Except to be patient.

Which is not my top personality trait, if I’m honest!

I suspect that immobility triggers many Child Sexual Abuse survivors. There are several aspects of this for me:

  • I froze while I was being abused .
  • I could not walk or run away from my father; I was stuck.
  • I could not push my father off of me. I could not move my arms. I was afraid he would do something ‘worse’.
  • I stayed still in order to ‘disappear’.
  • I felt in danger of imploding, the withheld fear and panic inside me almost overwhelming.

Helplessness — true helplessness, powerlessness — is extraordinarily grinding. Your body seizes up much like your mind does. You turn into a rock, and cannot reach out. You cannot do anything to help yourself. You simply cannot. You feel yourself slipping into invisibility, nearly losing yourself in the process.

Immobility, for me, equals being nothing. Not being able to dance, for me, risks dissociation. It can also bring the inner turmoil of CPTSD: bad dreams, flashbacks, the ramping up of despair.

I am completely aware of what immobility means for me. But my reactions are not something I can control. They are hard-wired.

I am much stronger now than I was when I was a child, of course. I have more to live for, a lot more hope. And I know that whatever happens, I can bear it. But lasting through, time and again, does come at a cost.

***

(Side note: I won’t be excerpting Learning to Survive for a little while. I’m all good though, and am so grateful for everyone’s companionship and belief.)

final going back (6)

This is really a kind of epilogue. There was another important thing that happened when I went to the US — specifically, to Texas.

Some of you may remember the little town between San Antonio and Beaumont, where my grandparents would meet my mother, and I — like the bundle of acceptance I was then — would be passed one way or the other, depending on my mother’s health: from my grandparents back to her; or, more often, from her to my grandparents. This town is called Luling.

When I was staying with my San Antonio relatives this time, my Beaumont Aunt Lois asked if we could meet just outside San Antonio, to avoid confusion and traffic. She was picking me up to take me to Houston airport, and from there I would fly home back to London.

She told me she was thinking about a little town, and I said ‘You’re not going to say Luling, are you?’. She was, and did. Chills ran up and down my spine, and she said along hers too.

Yes. Luling it was then. We were once again going to bring the two sides of family together, over 50 years later.

The image featured at the top of this post is the sprawling Bucee’s where we met. A long way from the tiny diner which appears in all of the background photos here on this site. And yet: it’s the place we where we met, once again, and where I passed, completely willingly, from one car to the other.

I couldn’t help myself. I was…ecstatic. Of the three relatives there with me, the San Antonio and the Beaumont sides — no one could remember if they’d ever met before. But they all shook hands, shared stories, under the blaring full Texas sun. We were all together. Something had healed for me, knitted as one. Finally.

And then I came home.