When I was a child ….

[Ayanna]

I wrote stories, pages and pages of handwritten stories about ordinary people who achieved great things. I lived in this world of fantasy. I was the persons in my stories.
I was detached from reality. I slipped through life somehow. That made the abuse I suffered in real life bearable and it kept me sane.
I was a brilliant student and I was as strong as the characters in my stories.
When I left home I did not write anymore. Somehow the connection between my life and the fantasy got lost.
That was the time when I began to have anxiety attacks, when I had signs of PTSD.
There was no help, the story of my life.
I digged deep into psychology and psychiatry and explored my mind.
I was lucky to meet an old man, who became a father figure and who talked to me for several years. I became almost myself.
Tonight I think of this old wise man again. He disappeared from my life when I met a significant man and he disapproved of him. He was right and I did not listen, no, I knew better … so I thought and was wrong.
All this happened a very long time ago.
I wish I were able to write stories again, to empower myself with fantasy. I have lost that ability. All I see is a cold, plain world with heartless people.

[Serenity]

Hi Ayanna,

I can understand the temptation and lure of slipping into fantasy. I think I can be like that. It is my protection mechanism, and my chance to dip into an ideal world.

Dreaming and fantasising is good, in that it puts us in touch with our deepest desires. It can be a comfort thing, too.

But I have been thinking how, the more we exist in that world, the more of a gap there is between our real life and the ideal. We spend our energies dreaming and yearning, and our own life suffers from a lack
Of brave and concrete effort to make our ideals a reality.

I think the fact that we are part of this very forum is proof that good people do exist. All the women here are good, sympathetic people.

Unfortunately, throughout history, there have been good and bad people, a constant battle to overcome evil. We can’t let evil take over. We can’t let it destroy our faith and hope. We must voice, fight, challenge things. We must be the change that we want to happen.

I truly know how you are feeling. You’ve been knocked sideways, treated awfully by bad people. All you can do is take baby steps now towards helping others and taking good care of yourself, the latter being a priority.

If you can’t run, walk; if you can’t walk, crawl. Better to take tiny steps in the right direction.

Hugs Xx

[Peaceful Pig]

Hi Ayanna, I can empathise with that. I wrote a lot of poetry and songs as a child to help me deal with my abuse. I didn’t write about the abuse per se, I wouldn’t have dared, but it helped me access a less damaged part of me I think and definitely helped keep me sane. Isn’t it amazing that such creativity can arise out of such pain? I can’t seem to access it now though. You are an amazing person who has achieved great things xx

[Ayanna]

Hi Peaceful Pig, you hit a nerve here. My fantasy caused me to survive.
Since I lost my fantasy my life is sometimes unbearable. Since my last ordeal there is no way out of the darkness anymore.
I wish I could find my fantasy world again.

[Bridget Jones Is Free]

I agree with both posts. Serenity is right in saying we must challenge things and baby steps are a must. And I agree with Peaceful Pig that you have achieved great things, you sound creative and you will rise above the abuse you endured, no matter how you manage to do so.

Personally I enjoy rewriting the lyrics of some songs, I find a voice in recreating words for a tune which sparks my imagination. That’s probably why my husband hates it when I whistle. I often say in my culture and my language, there is a song for every word. I can come up with an existing song for every word which hurts me, and I sing it out loud whenever he hurts me. It angers him and that is my form of revenge.

During WWI, many soldiers wrote poems and diaries and letters to their families and sweet hearts. When you wrote during your childhood, you found a voice to direct your feelings into some form of verbalisation, imagination brought you a release, you fled to another world and that’s good.

One day, when your mind and spirit are free again, you may find a renewed energy and creativity to write again, and you will find the world is not so cold and heartless. You just have to look in the right direction.

If you were to compile all the stories written on this Forum, you could build a web of connections between women who have never even met each other, yet something powerful links them all together, they build stories where Evil gets beaten each and every day, where the Good on this Earth can prevail and where hope and understanding help eradicate the most heartless situations.

Put us all into one room and let the words flow, you will find myriads of stories. I think you should start writing again Ayanna, let your mind flow, let your creativity revive itself, you once had the power of words and fantasy, you will find it again.

[Bridget Jones Is Free]

For Ayanna :

“I’m Still Standing”

You could never know what it’s like
Your blood like winter freezes just like ice
And there’s a cold lonely light that shines from you
You’ll wind up like the wreck you hide behind that mask you use

And did you think this fool could never win
Well look at me, I’m coming back again
I got a taste of love in a simple way
And if you need to know while I’m still standing you just fade away

Don’t you know I’m still standing better than I ever did
Looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid
I’m still standing after all this time
Picking up the pieces of my life without you on my mind

I’m still standing yeah yeah yeah
I’m still standing yeah yeah yeah

Once I never could hope to win
You starting down the road leaving me again
The threats you made were meant to cut me down
And if our love was just a circus you’d be a clown by now

[Ayanna]

Thank you Bridget 🙂

[Peaceful Pig]

Bridget that was beautifully said 😃
Ayanna, you could look at it as you now being strong enough that you can face what has happened without needing to retreat to a fantasy world. You’ve already survived. Van der Kolk recommends ‘free writing ‘ to help overcome trauma, where you just write really fast without thinking with your conscious mind, no rereading or editing, just letting it flow out xx

[Ayanna]

I like Van der Kolk. I read his book ‘ The body keeps the score’ in stages. It is hard to read because it confronts me with how wrong I have been treated all my life.
I do not feel like a survivor. I have not survived yet.

[Author]

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