Saturday, October 6, 2007

Lunch and a Movie - Part 3

Just a reminder this post is about events that took place in my life over twenty years ago. The reason I am sharing this story is because of how it's affecting me today.

Part 1

So my husband and I were called to come in for a meeting at the counseling center. I was told it was to discuss my treatment. I don't think that my husband knew the specifics of the meeting either but to be truthful, I'm not sure about that. I should ask him.

When we arrived at the center, Dave and I were ushered into a room with the director and an unidentified woman. As the meeting got started she was introduced as a social worker from CPS. As soon as that introduction was done, my entire system knew what this was about. They were going to take my children. The alarm bells went off and chaos broke out.

Despite the internal chaos with a zillion voices screaming and wailing in my head, my therapist personality was able to present as a reasonable representative. No one in the room but me even knew there was an internal mutiny happening. Terms were negotiated to keep my children at home. However, I was never to be left alone with them. But it was all too late, for those inside the message was clear, I was unfit to be a mother.

The details of how my children were supposed to be protected from me are not important to this post. The post is about the lunch date tomorrow and the issues with the parties coming. So what is important is how those issues developed twenty years ago and how much they have affected me.The details of how my inner children and the rest of my system were affected by all of these events are directly related to my current issues with the two women from my former group.

With this latest assault leading to my system believing I was no longer fit to be a mother, I was now guaranteed of a meltdown. There was no way it could be stopped. My therapist personality needed to come up with a plan quickly or I was doing to be dead. It was that simple.

And while all of this was happening, where were those special friends from my support group and the original therapist? That is really the purpose of all this history about being removed from my group. They were nowhere to be found, not for me anyway. The group members were so caught up in their own feelings about the split up of group that they were totally unavailable to me emotionally. I did talk to them a few times but it was no longer the same. The therapist was off limits, through no fault of her own. All three of them were no longer a resource for me to call when I desperately needed help.

Even to this day, the resulting issues have not been addressed.
Every time the subject of what happened back then is brought up, it still goes off into how it affected their lives. From what I can tell, no one seems to be particularly interested in the details of what it did to me. They seem unable to process that it almost killed me.

Before that time I could call any of them on the phone and tell them about anything that was bothering me and they would be supportive. They had wanted to know every detail, something which had been most helpful to my system in trying to process the information. Having ordinary people willing to sit and listen to the most horrendous forms of abuse had been very heeling for me. But now, when I needed it most, they were no longer there.

This interference in group had crossed lines and muddied waters. Before we had each been victims with separate lives, separate stories and separate victimizations. Now we were all victims of the same offense and no longer able to be supportive to each other.

Since then, our relationship has deteriorated to more of a superficial nature for me. I find it hard to invest myself knowing there is this issue that's probably not going away. I understand that removing me from group hurt all of us but I am the one who had to leave. They still all had each other. I just want them to understand, it not only cost me them, it nearly cost me my life.

And I want them to understand that they're being so caught up in their own pain and unable to deal with mine added to my jeopardy. For the first time in our relationships, they were responsible for part of the pain I was suffering. Many of my personalities who were attached to them were absolutely devastated. The loss and abandonment by my friends were the biggest trigger of all that nearly cost me my life.

I know they have no idea. We cannot talk about it long enough to get to that information because it immediately turns from how I felt to how they felt. They can't even say they are or were ever sorry for what I went through once the group was split up. My guess is they have not healed from their pain over that time. And, as you can see, I have not healed from mine.

While I managed to save my life by working through all of the issues caused by my ritualistic abuse. I have not been able to put the wounds from being abandoned by my friends behind me.

These were my very first REAL friends. Friends who cared about how I was feeling. Friends who didn't want to just hear the easy stuff, they had wanted to hear it all. Anything that would help me heal, they wanted to hear. That was until it triggered their pain. Then they ran from me fast and furiously, just as the others in my life have done. So where do I go from here?

to be continued.......

4 comments:

BarnGoddess said...

feeling abandoned when you needed your friends to be circling their wagons around you must have been awful.

I'm glad you were able to pull thru it!

How'd the outing go?

jumpinginpuddles said...

we also were in a support group we also were abandoned being blamed for things we never did and we also have bene in a position where we are not sure how much our partner was involved in knowing things before we went to meetings about our supposed mental stabiltity. we also have not healed from some of that and i doubt we will ever, have you tried writing them a letter?

jumpinginpuddles said...

by the way this blog rose up the anger at injustice for you so i have a question Is it possible you wre set up?

Anonymous said...

abandonment is a big fear of us and always will be, just as it is for you and most others in our shoes. it took us over 30 years to believe our JM would not abandon us but we believe it now.

thinking of you

peace and blessings

keepers