Sunday Morning.

I have been up now for over an hour, woke up after a bad dream feeling really scared and shaking once more. I barely remember the dream now but do know that it was about my childhood so guaranteed not to be a good one.

Had a Chat in my group last night about flashbacks and memories and it is apparent that ALL survivors go throught this process, to think that just over a year ago I had no idea what was happening to me when the flashbacks came! But I now know the full extent of them as they are occuring regularly these days.

During a flashback its as if the Abuse is happening all over again, I feel the fear, the pain.. hear the sounds that were there at the time, and feel so unsafe its sometimes unbareable to handle. Frequently I come out of it crying, tears streaming down my face and it can take anything from a few hours to a few days to recover from it depending on what it was about. Its not easy I can assure you of that, but I will not let my Abusers win anymore they have had control of my life for far to long and its my time now! I will get through all this even though its not easy, they will not stop me from getting my life back to where it should be.

I have memories coming up these days that I am sometimes a bit unsure of, whether its because they are new or just too painful to beleive I'm not sure but I do know they can be just as destressing as a flashback. As I plan on going back to my childhood home on Tuesday I am experiencing all sorts of memories, no doubt I will have more as tuesday approaches and maybe even after I have been there, I haven't been back into that house since I was 16 yr old so its a long time ago, I admit I am scared of what could happen when I walk in that door once again, but feel that now its time to take my life back and re gain the control over myself instead of letting someone else control me! Its my life to live as I feel fit and my past although a part of that life is not going to run it for me anymore, I intend to deal with all my demons now through therapy and by writing in here when I feel the need, I will try to be open about how a Survivor feels as I get the memories and flashbacks, as I feel 'triggered' by differeent events in my day to day life.

Sometimes the sound of a certain song on the TV or radio can set me off and before I know It I am back there as a child once more. One of my 'triggers' is someone shouting at me it sets me off bigtime, I just can't handle it at all.. but also the sound of seagulls making noises can do it as well, problem there is that I live by the sea so that sound is one I have had to get used to again and try to not let it get to me, more often than not these days it doesn't as I have learnt to cope with it and separate it from the past most of the time. But occasionally it doesn't work especially if I have just had a flashback, when that happens its so damned hard to separate the two that sometimes I feel like I am going crazy but deep down inside I knwo I'm not, its just my past rearing its ugly little head again trying to take control of me once more, but it will not win. I will!

So far I have managed to deal with a lot of my stuff by writing about it in my poems, it helps me a great deal writing it out and I knw that I will continue to do so until there is no more to say, when that will be I have no idea it could be as soon as next year or could be many years from now, but I will fight onward and upward. It has been suggested that maybe I try to write a book again about how it has all affected me, and I am thinking about it, but remembering the details of incidents isn't that easy when they are all blighted by the pain of the Abuse itself. I can retell the incidents but the words said to me are blurred, so how do I remember those to make it easier for a reader to understand the pain I went though and still go though? One day in the future maybe that will be possible for me? I have no idea....