Thriving On the Other Side continues her journey from an abusive past into a place of healing with the help of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR). If you missed previous installments of her journey, please click here.
I’ve always believed that when you are given a bad situation, you can focus on the positive and get through anything. If you get lemons, make lemonade. That’s how we grow.
But how do you make lemonade out of the knowing that you were violated, brutally and horribly, as a child? By a parent and grandparent you supposedly could trust? There’s a lemonade challenge of the biggest proportions.
My grandma’s cellar was a torture chamber. Here’s a memory for you: I’d been dragged down the steps and tied in the dark for hours, waiting for daddy to come and punish me after my horse ate a tomato from my grandma’s vines. That hadn’t been a rule yesterday. But it was today and now I was tied in the dark, damp cellar, terrified, sobbing quietly, praying Daddy wouldn’t come, knowing he would be here all too soon.
Those hours of waiting were so much worse in many ways than the ultimate punishment — knowing what was coming, powerless to do anything about it, waiting, terrified. So little, so powerless, so lost in a world that didn’t make any sense to my eight-year-old self.
Yet I have found the ways to make lemonade. After a point in time, I didn’t see any other choice than to use the truth to empower myself. I wanted to move beyond a life so black I couldn’t get off the couch: exhausted, overwhelmed. Therapists say that’s what happens in this kind of case. I’d held onto the truth for so long, buried it so deeply that it had overwhelmed my adrenal and other systems — anything involved in the fight or flight instinct was now out of juice. My always limitless energy was gone. My whole endocrine and immune systems collapsed not long after that pivotal EMDR session.
Once that first closet door opened, I felt the decades of exhaustion fall on me like a dozen marathons run back-to-back. Finally, I realized I had to take this barge full of lemons and make lemonade. The alternative was more blackness, and I’d spent enough time in the dark.
First, I accepted the exhaustion — something I still find amazing, knowing myself as I do. I’m the gal who bulls her way through anything — the Energizer Bunny running on an endless supply of batteries. Yet I let myself crash, knowing that it was what I needed to do to heal. I gave myself the space to be less than perfect, to have no energy, to be unable to do it all — to do anything for months. That was the first step toward the lemonade.
I also accepted what had happened to me: with my guy (all the guys for that matter), and with my childhood. It was all part of the process, so I accepted it as happening for a reason.
The pain from that last oh-so-trusted guy’s betrayal was what I needed to open that first closet door, to remember a piece of a story, my true story, that would change my life forever. That’s another step toward lemonade. As much as I hated him for what he’d done to me, I was also grateful. Without the horrible pain of his betrayal, I wouldn’t have opened that closet door. As heartbreaking as it was for me to learn the truth about him, it was the truth that set me free.
After thinking that I was going insane, the truth was somehow comforting. At least I knew I wasn’t the crazy Mad Woman. In a strange way, everything started to make sense.
My life of one bad relationship after another, my drive for ultimate perfection, my RoboBabe personality who roared at anyone that threatened me in my 20s and early 30s. All of them began to make complete sense in light of what I was learning about myself and my little girl. With each new closet door I opened another piece of the puzzle that was my life fell into place.
Understanding myself and my life on the other side of me and my truth — that’s the best lemonade, ever.
Photo Credit
“flowers for the old tree” mara ~earthlight~ @ Flickr. com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.
Recent Bel Brown, Thriving On The Other Side Articles:
- The Power of a Pause
- The Power to Change Our Story
- The Power to Co-Create
- Of Faith and Fear
- What’s in a Secret?
I too remember the waiting. Mom would spank me. Then I would wait. Not in the basement, but in the bathroom, where Mom made me sit and wait for him to administer the punishment. He’d be in a bad mood after a lousy day at work. When he would start “spanking” me, I realized years later I was afraid he would not stop. A therapist asked what I was deserving of all this punishment for. I couldn’t even remember. A horrifying tale you share, and the ongoing nature of it just astounds me!
Hi Dan
Your story is similar to mine – I never knew when I’d be punished for not being perfect. Perfect was a relative thing – one day it was because I missed a question on a test and didn’t get 100% as was expected. Another time I could miss a question and it was no big deal. I remember one particular instance where my horse ate a tomato from my grandma’s garden. He’d always been allowed to do that -but on this occasion I was dragged down the stairs and tied for hours in the dark cellar waiting for the punishment.
I realize now that the physical horror was one level of torture – and was so overwhelming to my little self. But the emotional trauma of never knowing, the blindsides and then the stomach wrenching waiting for the shoe to drop – that had the bigger impact on my life.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing – and please keep sharing. I believe your story is similar and we can all heal together!
There is light all around!
Thriving