Last night I dreamt of the Australian ocean. I was paddling in the turquoise blue water, diving under to swim far out, watching the beach. So pristine, so clear a day, just perfect. I felt so happy, so content. Then I was walking on my favourite trail along the coastal path. I heard the rush of water behind me and looked back to see a massive tidal wave coming towards me. It was a monster of a wave, not one I would survive, but somehow, as it hit and moved over my body, I was left standing. Then another followed even bigger, the water was so clear I could see through it, it was the deepest blue, I was mesmerised. Once again the wave hit me but went through me, not even knocking me over. I was again left standing against a wall of trees. I awoke feeling as if I had been in Australia as a deep sense of grief pulled me down to the pit of my stomach. So I’m overwhelmed. With grief, with not knowing myself or anything else. It has all come around to this. I have absolutely no idea of who I am. There is no I anymore, only the parts I have become and they are many, some incredibly intense, some skipping rope playing in the garden, some male, some female, all wanting recognition, all needing love. We are one now and that’s the newness of it all, the knowing of ALL of them. This is full integration, it’s a blast, a chaotic real mix of who. No day is the same internally, we keep moving. I can’t pin myself down. I’m in a revolving door of selves since the beginning of the year, when my body gave me the one last catastrophic sexual assault stored in my body. I believe I have reached the end after the years and years of processing this shit dumped on me as a child. And yes there’s so much grief, it’s that wave coming at me. It’s too much, it’s just way too much but somehow I’m left standing, How ? because I’m used to this ? We all carry the load together I guess.
It’s been a year of remembering and dealing with the same memory that has led me to this point. This time last year the nightmares started to untie it from its moorings in my dissociated unconscious. My unknowns rising up to say hello here we come, we got some truths to tell you. Now. Then slowly over the year it has all unravelled An experience of near death at the hands of a group of men who sexually assaulted me at 5 years of age and left me for dead. I have fallen apart this year and I have stayed upright too, processing this one memory which gave me three new child parts. It is the hardest memory I have ever had to deal with, and that’s saying something. I have become someone else again, discovering what it is I had to do to survive, and where I went internally to do that. My body has turned it all out, and I stood back, got out of its way, letting it give me the whole memory. This final permission I gave myself I regretted at times, but every time I wanted it all to stop, a voice, the voices inside would say to me, this is what you promised us all those years ago when you got clean. You said you would allow it all, no matter what, you would let us feel it all, know it all so we could be free. And so we continued until the point we are now left with a grief so deep, so wild and true all we can is buckle to it, weeping it all out. Staying true to all those children who survived the darkest horror and traveled through to meet the light and know it as the love out there that is available to all of us. The Divine.
So here we are. I am a survivor of organised ritual abuse who has lived to tell our story. Full of all these tears, shored up by this fire of being alive. I am alive and thanks are necessary . Thank you to all the women at Rape Crisis who have been there for me this year, without you, where would we be? Thank you to my Consultant Psychologist, Maeve Crowley, our rock. Thank you to my doctor, Emily and all the staff at Maywood Surgery, again where would we be without you? Thanks to my best friend , Jennifer, you know me, you’ve always been there, you are a star. Thank you to my followers on Instagram who support my writing , it’s beyond my wildest dreams to have you like my work, when I am sharing secrets I would never have believed I could ever have shared. That’s a true miracle. And my girl, my daughter, Grace. Just no words here. You know what you are to me. I got us out so your life would be different to mine and it is baby. You amaze me, you just amaze me . What loving a child does !! Then there’s my animals, the source of never ending comfort and joy, they are a world of pure love and I get lost in them. I am not alone anymore. It’s all such a beautiful thing coming from place of pure isolation. And no matter the pain of the grief at the end of this memory, my tears always lead me to a place of love, even when our question is, what the fuck was that? Lets stand back now and consolidate on all this unknowing , wrap it all up in love. We are always in the process of exploring anyway, of never really knowing, but holding our truth kindly, so more can be revealed. My tidal wave of tears can come at me, I will let it wash over me and I will cry and remain standing to share about it, to say to any other survivor of organised child abuse, you are not alone, you’ve made it this far and recovery is possible. I have lived it this year again and again, through all the memory and the nightmares. You are not alone, recovery is possible. Sending big love to all the survivors.