What am I talking about? Assumptions! Regarding: Experiences! Healing journeys! Therapy! Plus any other number of things that many of us go through.
So many times I see people making assumptions based upon their own experiences. They take what has happened to them and then project it onto others.
For example, I have run into some bad therapists. Based upon that, I could make the assumption that all therapists are bad. However, I know that is not the case because I was blessed to have had some good ones first. But what if the bad ones had been my first ones? I might never have even given a good one a try.
The reverse is also true. Before I ran into a bad therapist myself, I could have made the incorrect assumption that all therapists are good. Thankfully, I knew better than that for I had heard of bad ones before I ran into any.
Another example of assumptions has to do with what happened with my father. When I was in high school, I kept getting a gut feeling that something had happened between my father and I, but I had no memories at that time of anything specific. My life was a mess, but I refused to allow that to cause me to assume anything specific had happened (as a way of explaining why I was such a mess). I wanted proof.
For several years I battled that feeling and grew weary of it. So, I told the L-rd that, unless He gave me the memories, I was going to shove aside my gut feeling…which I did. I pushed it aside and refused to even consider it. I was actually rather successful at it.
Later, when I was trying to get help, I was confronted with that gut feeling again. So, I prayed for the truth. I wanted to either have the memories of the incidents causing the gut feeling to be revealed or, if there were no underlying incidents causing the gut feeling, to have the gut feeling go away. I refused to make assumptions about my father and I.
As it turns out, the person I went to for help…for prayer help…was a mess himself. However, there were some things in my life that stopped after being prayed for. G-d did use him in His own way to help me. I used to have “visions” of walking into my apartment and seeing my husband and sons slaughtered and blood all over the place. That stopped. I used to “see” myself driving off embankments or being “pushed” down stairs by invisible forces. That stopped.
I also had four memory flashes while working with him. Two were of molestation. Although I did not really want to believe, I knew they were true. And even though I could not see who it was…I “knew”. In my heart of hearts I knew, but I did not want to deal with it. So, I shoved it aside. I did not want to assume it was my father…not unless I clearly saw his face.
The other two made no sense to me. They were ritual abuse in nature, but at that time I was not familiar with ritual abuse and I had no inkling that I had that background. He interpreted the flashes as non-memory. He said they were some kind of generational thing passed down from prior generations. That did not sound right to me. So, I just set them aside for the time being. I did not assume they were non-memories. I did not assume they were memories.
Later, it kept bugging me. I suspect it was because odd things were happening between my father and I…as an adult married woman. I just kept feeling like I needed to stop shoving this under the rug. So, I went to a woman who specialized in a prayer ministry. We prayed a lot and, with the help of the Holy Spirit, I was able to see more of the memory…enough to see my father’s shirt…and his face.
As it turns out, this woman was abused herself. I think that caused her to push me to confront my father…perhaps before I was ready. It was something I felt I needed to do…even though I was really nervous about it.
When I did confront my father, with my mother by his side, he never denied a thing. He only said that he did not remember doing anything like that. I thought that was an odd response. My mother readily agreed that something had happened to me. She was just wondering “who it could have been”.
I pointed out something my father had been doing in the more recent past that was boundary crossing. It was part of the oddness that had been going on between my father and me and had to do with kissing me on the mouth against my wishes. I had been ducking and making it clear with my body language that I was not comfortable with it.
My father acknowledged that he knew I was uncomfortable with it, but said that body language was not enough. I had to verbally say it. My mother was furious with him at first, but then got quiet.
My father, when confronted with my memories, assumed that the counselor must have suggested them to me. As she pointed out to him, I had them before I came to her. He then assumed that I must have gained them via hypnosis or psychotropic drugs. I was never hypnotized and had not taken any psychotropic drugs. Then he assumed they were planted there by satan to try and break the family apart. Mind you, my family was never close anyway. The only thing it could break apart were the manipulations going on.
He gave me a whole stack of articles that he “just happened” to find in people’s houses that he was cleaning. He said that G-d had led him to them. They all dealt with the false idea of False Memory Syndrome…something never proven and not in any of the DSM’s.
I don’t think he really believed any of those things caused my memories. However, I did start taking a look at them. Nothing in those articles applied to me. Nothing. Nor I did fit the typical FMS profile of that time. I did not sue my parents. I did not file a police report. I did not go public. I did not act in any kind of vindictive way. I did not even keep my sons from visiting with my parents. It simply became the subject not talked about…until about four years or so later.
When my youngest was three, my parents started to manipulate their way into living with us. Even my pastor, when he heard about the situation, thought it was very odd. I became very unstable and started to have suicidal ideations. I prayed and fought and it got better…until they actually moved in.
Then it got really bad. With my father up early and my mother up late, I had no time alone other than in my special room. They ended up spending more and more time with my son while I was being driven further into instability…an instability they were actually causing. They created a problem and then were there to “help”. I could take a whole book to share the kinds of manipulations that were going on.
It was not until they had been out of the house about a year that I got a more complete understanding. It was all about them having access to my son. They moved in the month he turned four. They assumed that they could eliminate me…either by suicide, hospitalization or simply my shutting down…and they would have complete access to my son. But G-d had a different plan!
More to come…
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A Survivor's Thoughts on Life 