Life Beyond! - Survivor tips

Support for Life Beyond

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:11:52 GMT

Today is the first day I have really gotten back into feeling ready to get this thing rolling for next year. The GREAT news is that we are going to be covered by the non profit The Compassion Movement when its papers go through later this week. The even better news is that we now have a PR firm in LA working to help us put together promotions and fund raising. She is 100% behind what we are doing and has a huge non-profit of her own to help stop domestic abuse. Then, on the day of the conference I was contacted by yet another non-profit whose mission is to help dissociative disordered individuals (and targeting specifically those with DID) with education, support and treatment. They want to help us with the conference, promotions, speaker connections and more. Our PR person is going to see if she can't get us in with Military Chaplains so that we can do, a we attempted this year, work with Vets. If you have not yet joined the Compassion Movement, you can go to http://www.compassionmovement.org to do so. Its a social network where we can share ideas and resources to help transform he wold into a compassionate place.

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Tyler Perry Breaks the Silence

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:37:43 GMT

Today on CNN's homepage I read about Tyler Perry's breaking the silence on his abuse history. Here is what was on his website: "I'm tired of holding this in. I don't know what to do with it anymore, so, I've decided to give some of it away... Memories at 40: Not long ago, I was asked to speak at an engagement. I walked in and I was told that they had assigned a person to take care of me while I was there. She walked up to me, all of 5'2 " of her, and asked if I needed anything. I looked at her and started to sweat. It took me back thirty-something years to her apartment. I couldn't have been more than 10 years old when I went over to play with her son and Matchbox cars. She opened the door in skimpy lingerie. There was a man sitting on the couch, smoking. She told me that her son was in the bedroom. I was there playing with him about 20 minutes when I heard the man arguing with her. He said he was leaving and slammed the door. She came into the bedroom and told me that I had to go home. She told her son to take a bath and she locked him in the bathroom. I was at the front door trying to get out, when she came in and laid on the sofa and asked me if I wanted the key. I told her I had to go home as it was getting dark. She put the key inside of herself and told me to come get it, pulling me on top of her. Memories at 40: "What the f*#K are you reading books for?! That's bull*#*T! " "You F*#*ing jackass! You got book sense but you ain't got no mothaf*#*en common sense! You ain't sh*t and ain't never gonna be sh*t! " I heard this every day of my childhood. As my father would beat and belittle me, he played all kinds of mind games with me. He knew I loved cookies as a kid, most kids do. So he would buy them and put them on top of the fridge and when I would eat them he would beat me mercilessly. My mother was out one night, as she loved to play bingo, and my father came ome...mad at the world. He was drunk, as he was most of the time. He got the vacuum cleaner extension cord and trapped me in a room and beat me until the skin was coming off my back. To this day, I don't know what would make a person do something like that to a child. But thank God that in my mind, I left. I didn't feel it anymore, just like in PRECIOUS. How this girl would leave in her mind. I learned to use my gift, as it was my imagination that let me escape After he was done with his rant he passed out. Since my aunt lived two doors down, I ran to her. She saw me and was horrified. She loaded her 357 and went to kill him. Holding a gun to his head, her husband came and stopped her. Memories at 40: I got a call not long ago from a friend. He told me that a man that I knew from church when I was a kid had died and he didn't have any insurance. His family was trying to reach out to me to see if I would pay for his funeral. I quickly said no, but I wish I would have said yes. There is something so powerful to me in burying the man that molested me. I wish I would have dug the grave myself. Memories at 40: I was about 8 or 9 years old. I had a crush on a little girl across the street. She would come over to my house and we'd play. She was about 12 or 13. One day she stopped coming and when I asked her why, she told me that my father was touching her. I didn't believe her, so I talked her into staying one night. We were both asleep -- she was in one bed and I was in another. I opened my eyes to see my father trying to touch her and her pushing him away. I moved in my bed trying to make him think I was waking up. He looked over at me and left out of the room. Not long after that, he beat me mercilessly for something again. Another mind game set up, so I told my mother what he had done. The blood drained from her face. We left that day. We were at my Aunt's house and he came there about 1am. Not long after that we were back at home. Nothing would compare to the random, drunken, violent beatings I would receive from then until I was 19. Memories at 40: We would spend the summers in the country, with my father's adoptive mother. As a kid I was always sick. I had asthma and he hated it. He hated that I wasn't strong and virile like him. He hated that I couldn't be in the sawdust, pollen and the raw lumber like him. He hated that I liked to read and write and draw. He hated that me and my middle sister were darker-skinned than him. He didn't think he could make a dark baby. He just hated everything about me I guess. Anyway, I had to go to the doctor every Tuesday to get shots to control my allergies. When his mother found out she said, "Ain't nothing wrong with that damn boy...he just got germs on him. Stop wasting all that money. " When my mother left to visit some friends I heard what sounded like water running in a tub but it was sporadic. She came and got me out of the living room leaving my Matchbox cars on the floor. She said she was going to kill these germs on me once and for all. She gave me a bath in ammonia. Grateful at 40: I was asked recently how I made it through all of this, (half has not even been told) and my answer to that is...I know for a fact that there is a GOD. When my father would say or do those things to me, I would hear this voice inside of me say, "That's not true " or, "Don't believe that " or, "You're going to make it through this ". I didn't know at the time what "it " was, but today I surely have no doubt that "it " was GOD. That voice always gave me comfort. It allowed me to hold on. It kept me from being strung out on drugs, from dying when I wanted to commit suicide. It kept me from being a gang banger or drug dealer. Worse than all of those things put together, it kept me from being him. It brought angels to comfort me after every foul, harsh word or every welt on my legs or back GOD, only GOD. To know that the little boy that I was went through all that -- he went through and made it. Then me, as a man...I have to take on the responsibility of forgiving all of those people. I owe it to that little boy that I was and, more than that, I owe it to the man that I am Think about it, as a child we have no recourse. We have nowhere to go. We have to endure it. But as adults, we have choices. I choose to forgive with all my might. Forgiveness has been my weapon of choice. It has helped to free me. If you're having a hard time getting over something in your life, maybe you can try forgiveness too. It's not easy, but it does bring forth healing. I know that there are a lot of people out there with stories far worse than mine but you, too, can make it. To those of you who have, welcome to life. I celebrate you. We're all PRECIOUS in His sight. Tyler Perry" It brings me to tears to think about how many of have been so alone with so much pain and believing that we have nothing to give anyone because we carry mis-applied shame from our past. Tyler, thank you for speaking out. I posted on his website asking him to present at next years Life Beyond Trauma Conference. Won't you do the same?

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

The Conference was so good, it was great

Hi Ho Silver — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 22:41:38 GMT

This is the first chance I have had to write on this site since the conference ended. Oh my gosh, it was so good, it really was great. I know exactly the right people were there and the right speakers were also there.

This morning I was exhausted. I had to deal with such pain last night and went to bed with my heart throbbing with pain. I had a very troubled sleep, but going and attending the program set for today helped. The people who attended were so cool, and the programs were just what I needed. I know I have gained some friends which will last a lifetime. I feel energized, peaceful and happy. Now I am going to find some amazing Texan food and then I am going to hit my bed, filled with peace. Silver

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

12 Tips for Reducing Shame

Kathy Broady — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 04:16:11 GMT

One of the hardest areas of healing work in trauma disorders is dealing with shame.

For many survivors of sexual abuse, healing work involves learning about a lot of intense memories that leave them feeling a great deal of shame, humiliation, and embarrassment. These are difficult emotions to process, and the memory material is typically very overwhelming.

Some survivors feel immersed in shame from the very beginning of their abuse. They are appalled at what is happening for them and hate every minute of it, even if they can't get away from the predators. With every incident that happens, they feel worse, and worse, and worse. The more degraded the survivors are during the abuse, the greater shame they feel.

Shame can become all consuming. It drowns any feelings of self worth and erodes at self-esteem. It leads to self-injury, increased dissociation, suicidal thoughts, suicidal behavior, depression, PTSD, anxiety, addictions, etc. Shame, at its most intense, can destroy lives.

Survivors will internalize the harsh destructive words of their abusers, and if they hear those messages with enough repetition and intensity, they will believe the negativity as truth.

For the host alters of the dissociative systems, there could be nothing further from the truth than hearing what the other alters in the system are saying about abuse. The fronting, daily-life dealing alters are typically not at all aware of the depths of the abuse, and the horrors expressed by the parts much further behind them does not feel real.

However, the alter parts hidden deeper in the dissociative system often have a very different experience than the front alters. Dissociative walls and consistent amnesia keep their two worlds apart from each other.

Sometimes the abuse-laden parts have become so entrenched in their abusive worlds and so blocked from any kind of participation in the outside world that they do not understand the extremity of the worlds they know. For dissociative survivors who have been sold into sex slavery or prostitution or pornography, this dynamic can be all too true.

System parts that are taught by their perpetrators to feel pride in being used as sex slaves know that to be their world, their truth, their reality. They own that pride, and do not think twice about it being a difficult or questionable lifestyle. They have been encouraged to handle the pain, they learn to believe they like the pain, pain becomes associated with pleasure, and they have a sense of accomplishment for completing various sexual tasks, no matter how extreme.

These alters strive to make accomplishments in that world. They may feel quite successful at their "jobs" and have few feelings of shame.

Reclaiming those parts from their abusive worlds means that these parts will eventually connect with the horror and shame that they pushed away years ago. The parts that have been sexually passed around from person to person to person will start realizing how much that trauma actually affected them. What once gave them pride, will lead to painful agony, shame, and distress. They will realize how much they have been hurt.

However, once they realize they are being abused (or have been abused), they can make decisions to stop the abuse.

They can work with their therapists and the host parts of their system to get away from the abusers, inside and out. This is done through internal system work, freeing each part from the ways they have been trapped in their memories. (Remember, people with DID tend to keep internalized realities, dynamic re-enactments of the abuse with introjects of abusers in what feels like the current day timeframe.) This work can also happen in freeing the dissociative person from a real-life, current day abuser.

Once survivors feel more distance between themselves and the abuse, they can begin to heal from the barrage of shame-inducing, horrific traumas that happened. They can gradually begin to understand what things belong to the perpetrators vs. which things are truly about them. They can begin to develop a separation between themselves and the world of sexual abuse.

Healing from that internalized sense of badness is a big part of the therapy work. As survivors learn they are truly victims of crimes, and that they are not to blame, they can begin to let go of the sense of shame that has surrounded their lives for years.

As survivors remove the overwhelming trauma from their lives, they can then, in turn, fill their lives with positive activities from their own unique preferences. They can begin to feel better about their lives. They can feel healthy pride in what they are doing, and feel pleased in their accomplishments. They can replace the feelings of deep dark shame with a sense of happiness and self-worth.

Overcoming shame is not easy. It is hard, grueling, intense emotional work.

The intensity of the shame felt by a trauma survivor can be a type of emotional barometer for the amount of healing work that needs to happen. The more that shame overwhelms the survivor, the more healing work is still needed. As the depth of this shame lightens, the more the survivors have progressed in their healing journey.

1. As a trauma survivor, know and understand that you are not a bad person.
2. Come to terms with how the abuse was not your fault.
3. Be brave enough to look honestly at the trauma that happened in your life.
4. Find the strength you need to get away from your abusers.
5. Work hard to be safe and to end any and all abusive relationships in the current day.
6. Realize that you will be able to build a happy life that you are proud to have.
7. Believe that you don't have to let your shame destroy you.
8. Recognize the perpetrators for what they are - nasty violent sex offender criminals.
9. Let the perpetrators keep the responsibility for their own behavior. Don't take on what belongs to them.
10. Do your healing work - process your trauma, grieve the way it has affected your life.
11. As you heal, be willing to let the resolved issues settle into the past.
12. Fill your life with activities and people that you genuinely like.

__________

By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

My parts did what ever it took to save me

Hi Ho Silver — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:41:34 GMT

I have allowed myself to wallow long enough. So I am going to take just the tiniest baby steps now, to get back to my positive way of thinking. They have to be very tiny because I am very tender. Heck, it hurts to be where I am, so I am just going to have to struggle to my feet once again and take charge, so I can get to feeling better because where I have been this week hurts something awful. Isn't there a Oriental Proverb about, "If you fall seven times, get up 8 times". This kind of thinking is what has gotten me so far in my healing. I still need to use it, probably will always have to think in the positive so I can have the best life I can have. So much of my life has been wasted by abuse I received when I was young. Certainly I have not been able to be in joy as a result of it. I think I have figured out I am feeling the feelings my parts held for me all these years. These are the feelings of little kids and they are just fragments of what I should have felt if my Me's had not come in to save me. I have so much pain inside just from these bits of feelings, I can't imagine what it would have been like if I had to feel all the pain, see every incidence of abuse from so many people, every day, all thru the day. I know I would have died. No one could have experienced all that and survived. Funny, I always wanted someone to come and save me so many times as a child. No one ever did. I was blind to how my parts each worked to help me in whatever way they could so keep me alive. How very humbling. I am awed and so thankful I had my parts save me from what must have been impossible situations for a cute little girl to be in. I will be forever thankful to them. Today after I write this, I am going to sit with myself and listen or feel how it was for me back then. Then I will hug myself at long last and cry. Every tear washes away another piece of memory, I bet I will fill a bucket tonight. It's time to wash away the bits of memories that are left. My gosh, smile for me, I am washing away most of the gravel of the past abuse out of me, at long last. It has been hard but well worth it. Oh yeah, I am worth it all. I will see you at the conference. Smiling at you, Silver

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Partners have a different role than therapists

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:11:15 GMT

Partner’s have an important role in reframing their partner’s past and changing the distortions a young brain used to survive. Partner’s are often there when a Survivor is overwhelmed by their reactions. Only partner’s can provide the new context necessary to change the old, distorted views. This may seem like a daunting, self less, and unforgiving chore. It may be daunting, but it should also be a bit selfish and forgiveness is the point! It is important that you NOT be perfect. This is good since most of us aren’t. Perfection, or at least the belief that doing something better would have changed the outcome, is the enemy. Young brains are constantly trying to see everything in the world as the result of their behavior. It is the only thing they can control. So, when the world hurts to much to bear, the only solution is to be better. It is most important that you are compassionate. You aren’t there to solve their problems for them! Compassion is caring about how they feel. I have this theory that it isn’t the pain of what happened that leaves the horrible scars and overwhelming reactions. It’s that no one seemed to care. You care and they need desperately to know it. I can’t tell you how to use your grown up, adult mind to help them. That’s for the professionals and their special training. Analyzing and dissecting their memories probably won’t help, either. The emotions and thoughts that swirl around traumatic events don’t seem to work right with our grown up brain. It’s like having to load Windows 3.0 to run software programs from the early 90’s. Have you noticed how you can put a laptop to “sleep” and it only takes a few seconds for it to wake up. It is much faster than restarting the computer. That’s because it saved all the memories to a big file on the hard drive. Everything is stored and ready to relaunch just by reading in the file. Traumatic memories, alters, or whatever name you want to use are kind of like that. They are a snapshot of the important parts of your system just before it overloaded and had (in more computer jargon) a core dump. Except that the incredible human brain is thousands of computers all running at once. Those old programs from way back when are still running and sending out alerts. To work with them, you need to work in their environment, in that old operating system from their youth. This is particularly true (warning, more computer jargon) when they go into a kernel panic. (That is the Unix technical term for when the core operating system can’t make sense of the inputs. It’s lost its context and just gives up.)

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Why is it so hard to make the most of life?

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:44:20 GMT

I'm always amazed when I look back at all of the opportunities I've let slip through my fingers. Why didn't I know that was mine for the living. I have high self-esteem. I know that when I apply myself and keep a clear vision, I will succeed. Yet... That's what I know consciously. There is a part of me that must not be so sure, that gets worked up when life doesn't match it's experience. There is some thought process floating around in my head that HAD TO BELIEVE some wrong idea. It was the only way it could make sense of the world. Humans thrive on understanding what is going on around them. We really don't like surprises. We NEED TO KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT. These distortions kept me sane and alive a long time ago. Now they keep me trapped and frustrated. But not so much anymore. That's what the life beyond conference is about, getting beyond those distortions. I can't wait!

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Soul Mate Distortions

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:32:38 GMT

I have this theory (Of course, it’s those theories formed in a crazy, misunderstood world by our, physically developing brains that support the distortions that …) that we are most comfortable with people that have distortions similar to the ones we cherish. Maybe that means we start out cherishing our partner’s distortions more than them!? It makes sense, doesn’t it? They are most likely to think and choose like we do. They will avoid the same stuff we want to avoid. We are most frightened when our partner does something we didn’t expect and it triggers those old distortions. They no longer feel like our soul mate. In fact, they can become the enemy in an instant. So we choose someone who thinks like we do, with the same distortions.

This is a gift and a curse.

My goal is to see through my distortions so I can make better choices and appreciate the world more. If my partner falls into the same distortion traps that deceive me, then we aren’t likely to change anything. On the other hand, when we discover a distortion in our partner, there’s a good chance we can find it in ourselves. That’s a win because we know where to take a closer look at ourselves. The other huge benefit is we have a special insight into understanding what drives our partner’s distortions. Sometimes we can even address the fears that drive the distortion and begin peeling back the facade that keeps it alive.

It can be life changing!

Of course, if we both fall into the distortion at the same time, there really isn’t anyone around to help us find the truth. That is a curse!

Has this happened to you?

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Hope for You and Your Partner

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 15:20:56 GMT

If you’ve read my earlier blogs, you know I believe most trauma happens when we are young, before our brains are powerful enough to process senseless cruelty. Every year from birth to puberty sees remarkable changes in the kinds of information we can handle and how we process it. Many people want to believe if their partner would just see their experiences rationally, they should be able to “get past” their past and behave “normally.” If you could somehow use your mental perspective from today to see the past differently that would probably help. I don’t think it works that way, though. It’s like trying to tighten a screw with a fork. I mean they just work so differently that you can’t expect it to work very well. Besides, that’s kind of like throwing the baby out with the bath water. All of that stuff IS YOUR PARTNER. It’s just packaged a little different, that’s all. Alright, if you accept relying on their powerful. grown up mind to fix things won’t work, what hope is there? Your partner’s therapists and doctors have all kinds of tools available to them to access the remote workings of the mind. All of them probably work at least some of the time. The professional’s challenge is to do it in the one hour segments of their appointment book. As their partner, you are there when the reactions surface on their own. This is huge. Unlike everyone else, you are there because you want to be with them. It’s not your job or your career. It’s about your partner. There is something about them that you need and want. Many of your partner’s reactive processes will find this attractive. All of them are likely to find it terrifying. That’s right. Somebody that wants them and thinks they are a good thing is so out of synch with how they see the world that they can’t let that in. You will find this maddening. At least at first. And probably later on, too. It’s not easy, but by being there with them during their reactivity, their experience starts to shift from the terror in their brain to the safety of your arms. Don’t get me wrong. You are not your partner’s therapist or doctor, but what you can provide, nobody else in the world can do. And what you get is something nobody else can ever have. Enjoy!

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Why your Trauma Survivor Partner's Grown Up Brain Doesn't Help

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:01:03 GMT

This is number two in my continuing blog for partners of trauma survivors. If our partners could see things clearly, their overwhelming, but unsubstantiated, fears would all just go away. We could live free of there reactivity. I don’t see that happening any time soon, do you? In my last post I talked about how I see the lasting impact of trauma in how it distorts our experience today. I think this is true for all creatures great and small. Painfully, there are many among us who have had senseless and inhumane experiences reinforced so strongly that it’s hard to see how our world view could ever change. Even so, we all know it can. We couldn’t function in our complex social world without assumptions. They help us know what will happen next. Our higher brain is constantly creating a picture of what to expect. It lets us drive cars and carry on fascinating conversations. I think it is what makes humor possible. It is also how our past experiences distort today. I’ve talked before about how our most traumatic experiences occur when we are young, long before our magnificent human brain has completed its nearly 30 year development process. Our brain makes amazing transformations in the kinds of information it can handle in the first 6 years. It evolves more slowly throughout adolescence and the process continues until about 27 years of age. So, your partner’s young, not fully capable minds tried to make sense of things that simply don’t make sense. Survival depended on understanding how to cope. Too often, the only solution was to ignore the craziness. That works. For a while. Even the brightest, most developed human brain could not make sense of that history. But it could add perspective so it knows the difference between that experience and today. Unfortunately I haven’t noticed our grown up brain playing much of a role once our quicker primitive brain has recognized the pattern and made the logical assumptions it learned a long time ago.

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Trauma for Partners of Trauma Survivors

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 03:31:57 GMT

This is a series of blogs on what I think I understand about psychological trauma. It is based on my own experience and research. It is mostly intended to help partners of trauma survivors understand and discover the gifts that await them. I’d love to hear how these ideas sound to you. Trauma, or at least its long term impact, is all about distortions we store away in our brain. The primitive parts of our brain are so much faster than the parts that give us our higher reasoning skills. They often makes decisions for us before our grown up brains have a chance to sort things out. That’s great if you put your hand on a hot stove or a bee stings you. The problem is that primitive brain is, well primitive. It can’t keep up with the complexities handled by our mammalian brain. Our brains go through constant physiological modifications and upgrades from before birth until our late twenties. Most of our trauma happens when we are young and relying on that primitive brain to make sense of things that we know are wrong. So those distortions and our reactions to them are tailor made for our primitive brain to reuse again and again. So, then, it is really simple. All you have to do is tell your partner to fix those distortions and everything will be fine! Please don’t try that at home! In fact that word “fix” makes me pretty angry too (my primitive brain goes into panic mode). I’ve got a lot more to say about this over simplification! Until then, leave a comment and tell me what you think?

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Craigslist Trauma

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 05:04:17 GMT

Yesterday I was asked to comment on the events of this week where a man was arrested for attacking and robbing people coming to his home to buy something he had listed on Craigslist. Things like this can make us paranoid don't they? We trust that people will be good, and generally they are, but of course there are those exceptions that can change our lives forever. That's what trauma is isn't it? Its something that happens to us that profoundly changes how we perceive ourselves, others, and our world. It set us up to live with terror, nightmares, anxiety, depression, and difficulty trusting others. The Craigslist thing we can at least attempt to protect ourselves from to some degree. We can bring someone with us when we go to buy something from a stranger (of have a stranger come to us) and we can make sure others know where we are. But for child, such precautions are not possible are they? All we can do is take ourselves where we are, and learn to benefit from our experiences in some way. This way we become not just survivors, but thrivers, going beyond what we may have even expected for ourselves.

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Shattered...But Picking Up the Pieces

Darlene Ellison — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:34:07 GMT

The day I first learned of the betrayal, my body went into physical shock. This common response is the body's way of handling heavy burdens, allowing victims time to calm themselves before they react to difficult or stressful situations. After 24 hours, the physical signs of shock were gone. I was left in mental anguish and turmoil. Some victims of betrayal begin picking up the pieces almost immediately, while many others psychologically separate themselves from the betrayal, sometimes consciously, sometimes subconsciously. Betrayal can come at any age, in any package and leaves you bewildered that a person you trusted has broken that trust and left you shattered. Imagine yourself as a dazzling stained-glass window, stunned and shattered by betrayal into a million tiny pieces, bewildered as to how you might find the glue to put your window back together exactly as it was. Betrayal recovery, too, can come at any age and in any package. Betrayal Recovery is your unique process to finding that glue and the support system that will help you re-assemble that stained-glass window...not exactly as it had been, yet even more beautiful and radiant than it was before. Regardless of the details surrounding your trauma or its timeline, this Life Beyond Trauma Conference in October has something for everyone who has ever felt the sting of betrayal and the emotional paralysis that follows. Join us and walk with me as we explore the Journey Steps to Betrayal Recovery. Betrayal and the circumstances surrounding it are so often our "elephant in the room." You are a light for others, but your light can only be illuminated at its brightest when you are free from the pain. Yes, you are a light. Find it and embrace it. You have a purpose and all the tools and resources you need to fulfill that purpose. But you have to decide what to do with those tools and resources. Just as the light is inside of you, so are the answers. Eyes wide open, listen and trust!

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Do you have a healthy relationship with food?

Bridgette Collins — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 01:36:28 GMT

It’s no secret that food is essential to our bodies. Food provides us with the nourishment we need food to stay alive. It’s necessary for the growth and rebuilding of tissue and bones. It enables us to move from point A to point B. But, our society is running into some problems with food. Some researchers say we’ve become obsessed with food. Food has become the centerpiece attraction for most events in our lives whether they’re good ones or bad ones. Food has become a primary source of comfort to help us deal with the emotions from certain situations in our lives (pain, fear, anger, resentment, anxiety, and disappointment). Food has become that something we know we can control: we can eat what we want, when we want, and how much we want. Medical professionals even suggest that food has had a major impact on our healthcare system simply because it’s tied to our lifestyle behaviors. We’re using food in a way that was not intended and as result of our dealings with food our lives are unbalanced. So, what is your relationship with food?

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Victim Thinking by Melody Brooke

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:15:01 GMT

I don't know about you, but most of us - and certainly I do this - go into beating ourselves up when something goes wrong. When I make a mistake or something ends badly I often find my thoughts going into a self destructive pattern. I start thinking how stupid, how wrong, and bad I am. Do you do that?

Most of us do. What I have figured out is that this is based on something that happens in our brains. We have this old "reptilian" part of our brain that splits everything that happens in to safe vs. unsafe, blame vs innocence, and all sorts of other black and white, clear cut ways of understanding. This is useful in that it helps us quickly decide what to do in life and death circumstances, it's a survival mechanism. The problem is, of course, that life is never really that simple.

None us us is as bad (or even perhaps sometimes, as good) as we imagine. Movie stars and millionaires don't have any thing on us. We all have our flaws and our gifts. We are all, what I refer to as "perfectly imperfect." But our brains try to trick us into believing that we are all bad sometimes. That is what "Victim" thinking is, in essence, a lie telling us that we are nothing, no good, stupid, bad or whatever in order to help us survive something that seems life threatening.

We just continued to believe the lie longer than necessary. We had to believe it at that moment, it helped us get through it. But, we have already survived it, so we don't have to keep believing the old brain lies! We can start seeing ourselves as the "perfectly imperfect" and precious human beings we are!

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Using Collage as a Way to Communicate and Promote Healing

Kathy Broady — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:26:58 GMT

Creating a collage is an effective way of allowing your internal DID system parts to tell more about themselves.

Pictures can be a powerful way of communicating. And a collage - a collection of pictures - can tell a lifetime of stories.

Most trauma survivors were repeatedly told by their abusers, "Do not tell". Violence, threats, abuse, and pain often accompanied these rules. How many times did you hear "don't say anything to anyone" or "don't talk about this" or "you better stay quiet"? All of those directives involve restrictions on being able to talk. Years later, even in the safety of therapy, the intimidation of the no-talk rules can still feel as powerful and real as ever.

One important aspect of healing and therapy is learning to work around the negative, confining rules and those scary points that keep people stuck. If some of your parts are too scared to tell what happened, maybe they could show what happened instead. Pictures can be a way of communicating when talking is a hindrance.

A picture paints a thousand words!

Sometimes writing is too complicated and can also be "against the rules," especially in the early days of treatment. Thinking creatively, you can work around these rules too. Typing, for example, is actually different from writing. Cutting out printed words is also different from writing. Using stencils, stickers, and rubber stamps are also ways to show wording without having to write.

Collage allows the artist to show a mixture of pictures and words to tell stories without officially breaking no-talk and no-write rules. Collages can be made with a specific topic in mind, or they can be another useful format for the system descriptions.

To create your collage, use a variety of magazines, newspapers, advertisements, and telephone books, etc. Look through these printed materials and cut or tear out any picture, word, or phrase that seems relevant.

If you are sufficiently computer savvy, you can also create a collage from computer pictures. The web certainly has a wide variety of images available for collage purposes. If you can copy-paste and arrange pictures on a document, you can create an incredible collage without so much as lifting a piece of paper.

Let your internal system help pick out these pictures and words, and pay close attention to their interest in selecting pictures, even if you are not sure why they want that particular one. It is very important to not edit or limit the choices of pictures made by your insiders - let them pick whatever pictures they relate to. Each of your parts will have their own things to say, and everyone inside will relate to pictures in a very different way.

Don't be alarmed or hesitant if you don't understand why some of the pictures are selected. Chances are, you won't understand the meaning of all the items picked. That's ok - that means your insiders are getting ready to tell more about life from their own perspective. Be open to this new information - getting new communication is a big part of why this exercise is helpful. Besides, as you get to know the insiders that selected those pictures, and as the time is right, they will tell you the relevance and meaning of all their selections. If your insiders are picking pictures they relate to, they are completing the assignment, and that is a good thing. Don't interfere!

Even though you might want to know why the various collage pictures are being selected, be very careful not to push your insiders to talk about everything at once. Not only will that put the others on the spot, and potentially chase them away from the assignment, but you could also easily overload and overwhelm yourself if you start demanding explanations for every picture or phrase that is selected. Select the pictures from a comfortable emotional distance and save the "talking time" for later. There will be plenty enough time on different days for your system members to explain their choices to you.

If you find that lots of your parts are doing this exercise at once, you can either make different piles for the pictures that belong to different folks, or just cut out everything you see and separate the piles of pictures into themes at a later point. I have known people to be working on dozens of tiny collages all at the same time. I have also known people to assemble gigantic collages on huge poster boards. Use whatever style works for best for you! The important point is that your parts are creatively showing you what has deep meaning for them.

The purpose of the collage is to provide another way to tell without telling. Using groupings of pictures and cut out words or phrases can help to say things that you are not allowed to say directly. Any form of expression is helpful in the therapeutic process, even if some of it stays unclear for a long while.

Another added benefit to this exercise is that you will get to know your system parts better. You might recognize patterns for who leans towards what type of pictures. You might hear a new voice that you don't recognize insisting on a picture that has absolutely no relevance to you.

Collage work can help with the processing of traumatic memories. You might see entire story-lines displayed right in front of you in the groupings of magazine pictures. You might develop a greater awareness for who in your system dealt with what types of abusive situations.

Tending to everyone, listening, and allowing everyone in your system to have an unedited say in picture selection is important. As with any exercise that includes your whole system, it can lead to greater trust, system cooperation, and internal connection.

By Kathy Broady, LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com
www.SurvivorForum.com
http://discussingdissociation.wordpress.com

http://discussingdissociation.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/using-collage-as-a-way-of-communicating/

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Happy Independence day USA

Hi Ho Silver — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 06:14:30 GMT

Independence day, isn't that what we are all searching for? To be free of our fears and struggles, and the toll the abuse takes on our relationships and the lives of our loved ones? I know I am.

I still have problems with relationships, how about you.

It seems like my relationships currently are the on again, off again kind. I do have to say that is way better than the total isolation I used to live in. Some days no one contacts me, then other days everyone wants a piece of me. How I long for a more stable way of life.

I have come so far, sometimes sliding back wards, so I could take a few more baby steps up the mountain of healing. I still have a ways to go and I know I will do it too. I won't let them win. I will be free of all of the effects of the abuse, I will, I will. How about you?

I don't' know how far off my day of independence is, but with every baby step I take I get closer and closer. It is amazing how those little tiny baby steps add up.

Our country's independence day did not happen over night, our forefathers struggled long and hard against England to be free. Free of tyranny and over taxation. I have struggled against the same things my whole life. Certainly I lived in tyranny when I was being abused and my poor body was over taxed time and time again in a way no child should have to go thru. Oh, yes, I am still fighting the good fight. I I will continue to fight. I will never give up! How about you?

See you at the conference. Smiling at you, Silver

If you would like to contact me, my email is silver@lifebeyond.info

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

How to make the most out of theconference

Hi Ho Silver — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:28:50 GMT

this should still be silver

Welcome to the Life Beyond Conference. We want you to be able to have fun as well as learn what our presenters can give you so we are offering some tips:

Bring a friend, someone you trust and knows what you need or how to help you center yourself. Remember to breathe, everyday it’s the same old thing, breathe, breathe, breathe.

Take care of yourself. We know how much you want to absorb all this information, but don’t over do it. Instead of cramming in that extra session, take a nap, take a dip in the pool, go for a walk or shopping.

Do whatever you need to feel safe. If something is stirring up issues while you are in a session, feel free to “space out”, journal, go to sleep or leave the session.

Use the safe room whenever you need to find a place to feel safe, to cry, or talk to someone. If you don’t want to talk with someone else, you may sit quietly. The safe room is a place to come and get control of yourself and talk to someone. This is the place to come for crisis support. Therapy will not be provided.

Another thing you can do is go to the Collage Room to use the materials provided to put your feelings on paper. Art is a way of sharing what is going on with you without using words. You can also go to Collage Room to just play.

If you do not have a friend to bring, then make a connection with someone else attending who draws your interest. Remember, we were all scared to step out of our isolation in the beginning. Little baby steps can bring you a long way.

Take your mind off the deep subjects of the presentations and relax at the different entertainment possibilities that will be provided. Use your mindfulness skills to get yourself to the other side of your head, so you are not filled with your emotions all the time when you want to listen, need to think or talk, or just have fun.

Don’t spoil your time by isolating, or getting overtired.

Give your inner child a treat after all that deep stuff and visit the Collage Room. Go blow bubbles outside, skip down the sidewalk or whatever your inner child wants to do. You know what helps them. Give yourself permission to play if you need to, outside of the presentation rooms.

Often people are nervous attending a conference for the first time. Do not monopolize conversations. Sometimes listening to others sharing what helped them can help you more than telling cute stories about other things in your life. Remember, everyone wants to share something. Be respectful of others by not walking on what they are saying. Take turns talking and listening.

If you bring in food from the outside, please do not eat it in the lobby or other public places.

Respect others by not touching them without permission, not sitting or standing too close. We all have our boundaries and we should respect them. Feel free to bring your other “buddies”, bears, rabbit’s, dolls, or other stuffed animals to any of the activities. I usually have a tiny rabbit tucked deep in one of my pockets to help me feel safe and present.

We want you to learn and enjoy yourself at the same time. Silver

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Fulfilling my dream and taking action

Hi Ho Silver — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:38:21 GMT

It has long been my dream to bring survivors, thriver's, and professionals together to provide healing at a conference. Now at last, this dream is being worked on and acted upon and will come to completion in October in Dallas at the Life Beyond Trauma Conference.

When I was working with VOICES in the early 90's, I was part of a network of great people who had all come together to help make healing possible for themselves and others. There is a special kind of magic that happens when survivors and thriver's come together. When I started attending the conferences as a survivor and presenter, I grew by leaps and bounds. I couldn't explain it back then; I just knew it helped me so much. Now I have a better understanding of why going the conferences helped me.

First of all, I always thought I was the only one who has suffered abuse. It helped me so much to be together with other survivors because then I knew I wasn't the only one who had been hurt. I found I could identify with what so many people were saying. I was not the only one and therefore was not alone.

Then the validation I received from so many was so needed and appreciated at the time. It was so important to me, this validation that I secretly cried and cried inside myself (I never allowed myself to cry back then). I learned I didn't have to cry secretly, I could share my grief with others and still survive.

I had found inside myself a whole set of rules I had made while I was being abused to help me survive all the abuse. While I was there, I could see other people were doing what I would not allow myself to do and they were not dying (my biggest fear).

They were happy in spite of their pain and that amazed me. So many things amazed me at my first conference. The laughter we shared, the feeling of being together with a whole bunch of people like me was so healing to me. I brought my poems and shared them at the poetry corner along with other people. I was amazed I was being heard by others when I had been invisible for so long.

There were many other aspects of the conference that amazed me and helped me to grow. Most of all, it was the coming together of all the survivors and listening to the different professionals and survivors/thriver's speak about their fields of expertise. I watched and watched the other survivors and watching them helped me to really understand there could be healing for the pain inside myself.

I know there can be the same healing for the pain in you if make the decision to take action and attend the conference. It will help, I can promise you that, if you allow it to help.

The choice is yours

Silver

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Believing a Lie – the Foundation of Dissociation

Kathy Broady — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:34:57 GMT

What makes it difficult for trauma survivors with dissociative identity disorder to know the truth?

How easy is it to trick someone with DID with a lie?

When are survivors lying to themselves?

When does dissociation block out information to know the difference?

When does pain, especially emotional pain, become the deciding factor in what survivors believe, regardless of truth?

When does the viciousness of perpetrators demand and create particular beliefs and realities?

Is dissociation built on lying to yourself?

I recently saw a situation where a DID survivor could not accept the truth. Despite the facts that pointed to the obvious, the dissociative survivor was determined to believe what her closest confidants had said. She trusted these loved ones completely, but these were the very people who were completely invested in hiding the secret from her. Accepting the truth would have been far too painful, and she fought that reality with all the strength and vigor that she had. She was angry. She threw out rationalizations. She projected blame onto others. She railed back through time, pulling out circumstantial evidence that could support her beliefs. She argued like a court room lawyer. She completely protected her position with every psychological defense available to her.

And she believed the lie.

Because to not believe the lie would have been utterly and completely devastating for her.

So she couldn't let herself go there. Not even for a moment.

She absolutely, without question, had to deny the truth and hear only what she could stand to hear. She had to stay true to her preferred beliefs and rationalizations. She couldn't risk losing everything by believing the conflicting information. The cost of believing the truth was too high. To believe the truth would have hurt too much, so it was necessary for her to completely refute the truth.

At first I wondered how this survivor could be so staunchly set in her beliefs, even in the face of clear and direct evidence of the contrary. I marveled at the intensity of her denial, and felt a deep sadness for her. I was amazed at how completely sold she was on the lie - she would have fought to the death to defend that as truth.

But then I understood.

Believing the truth would have been enormously painful for her.

She would have had to believe that her loved ones betrayed her - that they hurt her beyond comprehension.

How could she believe that?

It would have cost her too much. To accept the betrayal would have meant she was alone. It would have completely broken her heart. It would have meant her loved ones abused her. It would have meant that her trust and faith in them was shattered. It would have created an emotional pain so huge that her body would have felt seared to the core. It would have left her feeling broken on more levels than words can say.

She would have wanted to die before accepting that truth as a reality.

Yet the truth was so obvious that it seemed undeniable, so it was mind boggling to see the intensity of the denial that could prevent her from seeing the truth standing right before her eyes.

And then I realized I was seeing something stronger than denial.

I was seeing the beginning of a dissociative split.

Dissociation - complete dissociation - is an emotional protection strategy that totally and completely removes painful realities from the mind and body of the survivor.

When the pain of accepting a trauma is too huge, dissociative people split. They get rid of the excruciatingly painful information by dissociating it. They don't accept it as happening to them, and they make it be gone.

They completely refute the truth even as it is happening to them, and they completely separate that painful reality from themselves, blocking it off, locking it away, keeping it as far from themselves as possible. Thick dissociative walls keep that horrendous information away from them. It protects them from feeling that unbearable pain.

If they don't want to believe they were being sexually abused, or physically abused, or spiritually abused, or emotionally abused, they use that same intensity to tell themselves it wasn't happening to them. It doesn't belong to them. It was happening to someone else - anyone else - just not to them.

They weren't betrayed by their loved ones. They weren't hurt and destroyed by their loved ones. That just didn't happen. Not to them. And if it happened to somebody else, they didn't want to know about it. Not now, not ever. That bad news had to be totally and completely separated from themselves. It had to belong to someone that was not them. It could NOT be happening to them.

And so they protect themselves from the heart-wrenching truth.

They need to believe the lie. They want to believe the lie. The lie feels better than the truth.

Believing the lie that "it didn't happen" is the very foundation of dissociation.

As understandable as it may be, every time you split, you believed the lie that it wasn't happening to you.

Ouch.

It still hurts. It hurts a lot.

And yet, finding the courage to face the truth in the present is as necessary for your healing as dissociating the truth away once was necessary for your survival.

By Kathy Broady, LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com
www.SurvivorForum.com
http://discussingdissociation.wordpress.com

http://discussingdissociation.wordpress.com/2009/06/20/believing-a-lie-%E2%80%93-the-foundation-of-dissociation/

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.