Tag Archives: complex ptsd

Victim To Survivor To Thriver: You Will Do It!

As I have lived my own survivorship and spent the last few years deeply connecting with trauma survivors, I see three distinct phases of the journey.

Victim

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Survivor

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Thriver (and for some, Advocacy/Warriorship)

I think one of the most difficult breaks in the healing process is moving from the victim to survivor state. The victim state of mind sees the downfall with everything in life. Solutions aren’t on their minds, they can only see everything bad in their world. Any solution offered, the victim stage will say they’ve already tried it or give a reason why it won’t work.

When I was in the victim stage, I recall having a fear that if I healed, I would have nothing to spawn my creativity. I was so incredibly wrong. As I have healed I have created so much more and so many amazing things. The fear was a farce.

The Survivor stage includes a mindset of knowing we have survived and believing we can still survive. Survivor stage is a small exhale and sometimes the longest stage as we are learning strengthening and practicing wellness and self love. In the survivor stage we face our anger, fear, hurt and deep pains. This stage is a boundary setting stage and a period of strengthening our minds. In the survivor stage we are starting to see the world around us as a place of possibility. We are embracing our ability to heal and determined to do so.

The step from survivor to Thriver is a smaller one. When we reach the state of thriving we have come into a place where we have embraced that our past is actually the past and we don’t have to live there now. In the Thriver stage we don’t see obstacles, but instead, opportunity. As Thrivers we take our horrible situations and tend to barrel through them because we realize that all things do pass. We tend to write out and create through our moments of pain instead of projecting them on others or drowning in them. We have no issues enacting our boundaries and don’t care who gets mad about it, as we understand our right to put ourselves first.

In Thriver stage we are empowered to know that healing doesn’t mean we don’t still have impairments from our abuse, but that we can absolutely get through it. We don’t have to stay in it. As Thrivers we embrace that our thoughts will set a course for our days and we learn that positive perspectives and energy will change and often make rectifying problems much easier when our thoughts are rooted in solutions, acceptance and great possibilities. We accept moments and people as they are. We aren’t as easily offended. We learn to be and let be. We fight for things that matter and let inconsequential situations fall by the wayside.

For those in differing stages of healing, please know that it can take years to get through these processes. Please be patient with yourself. When you take the step out of victimhood into survivorship, congratulate yourself!! That is a MASSIVE step!

I used the processes that I introduced in my interactive journal “Becoming Gratitude”, to move from feeling like a victim, to feeling the success of changing my world view and the perspective of my own existence and surroundings. It absolutely re-wired my brain for the better, in just a short five minutes a day.

You can check out the journal here:

https://amzn.to/2qhKfXu

Another amazing book that, if the writing processes in it are followed, will help a survivor really begin to embrace their emotion freedom is “PTSD: Time To Heal.” When I found this book I was ecstatic. It confirmed to me that all the handwriting processes I had done were absolutely on point. Handwriting our pain is not only crucial, but the absolute best process to follow, as the brain must slow down to process through our pen. This book gets into the physiology of why handwriting trauma is a crucial part of the healing journey. You do NOT have to be a prolific writer or speller to do this work. You just have to actually DO the tasks!

You can check out this book here:

https://amzn.to/2RbVvkK

Processing trauma isn’t easy. Neither is holding it inside. To be afraid of healing is akin to willingly drowning. Two major components exist in the survivor stage.

1. Being willing to do the work, WANTING to do it and reveling in moving towards being a Thriver.

2. Accepting and creating solutions and boundaries.

I believe every victim can become a Thriver. It is simply a matter of choosing to do the work that brings us there. I was sick of being in pain all of the time and tired of only seeing the negatives in my life. I grasped onto gratitude like a lifeline, and it absolutely changed my world view in just a few short weeks.

I hope you will give yourself the gift of healing. You deserve it. You CAN do the work, and you will be so much stronger for your fight and your life! Being a Thriver has empowered me in so many ways. I believe in you.

Do You Want To Know Why I Won’t Let You Get Close? Circa 2005

I spent the last couple of evenings sifting through CDs of writing going back almost 15 years. This poem was written in 2005. It really took me back to the cusp of my pain. In those days when I felt deeply haunted, poetry was my soul’s literary life saver.

Do You Want To Know Why I Won’t Let You Get Close? [circa 2005]

You want to know why I wont let you get close?
Because the last one I chose
Made me cry.
That is why.
You want to know why when you speak of love I run?
Because this is what I’ve become
Torn by pain
Dying in the rain.
Do you know why I am hardened and disenchanted?
Promises are always recanted
Broken and discarded
Cannot finish what is started.
This is the aftermath of fires that become ashes,
Of personality clashes,
Of unwillingness to change
And the attempt to put on chains.
I sleep alone with my fear in the night.
No beams in my window from the moonlight.
Stop smiling at me in the way.
I hear you, yet you have nothing to say.
Bitter growls disguised as precious words,
But you represent to me silent hurt.
You want to know why I’m turning my back?
I cannot view the qualities you lack.
A part of the common population
No separation.
Do not ask me anymore questions.
This is the meaning of rejection.
I say no, you ask why,
And then I cry.

Abstract Aberration

The Original One wavers, lazily sleeping, snacking and avoiding. Might I silence the fire, burning and buzzing in the spine? We run into the trails, avoiding the undergrowth of tree roots pushing their way through the ground.  We grab at leafy branches.  She’s an avalanche avoiding her own rubble.   Sideways in the gradients lingering around our eyes, the shadows whisper.  They run beside us, and we wonder if we are shadows to them, dark echoes leaning against their eyelids.  Where do we go when the pressure explodes and the heart is torn?  Where do we scream the aftermath? Into pillows, the skies or buried inside?

Words. We create language for the anguish.  The Brave One stands in her place, warrior and explorer of the past.  She will find answers for the empty spaces.  Don’t fear the faces.  Look into their eyes.  Don’t cry.  We stand beside oceans, gazing through windows of waves.  One day the illusions will pass and the pieces of the flashes will merge into view.   We  see truth for what it is, a planted alibi to cover every lie the truth hides, and humans will bend at their knees to kiss the feet of the malevolent just for a promise of heaven.

The Dark One peers, silently into the whispers, always with us, there are none who can attack our back.  It is revealed in instances, and she chuckles, amused at the minions.  Might she cut open the simulated empathy being used as weaponry by the mind swindlers?  Taking a piece of each, she throws their banter into the dark matter, and turning her face, strides away.  There are days when she is habitual, residual and invisible.  There are moments she is unaffected, stone faced and solid, looking at the rejected faces of the displaced, with malice.

“They are an inconsequential waste to this place and should die off, jump cliffs and return into nothingness.”

The Wise One watches, taking in the whole of their life, assessing and regressing into the violet of her quiet.  Traveling back, she brings the messages so they can know the next step.

“Nothing is permanent.” She says. “Stay inside the moments.”

We hold hands in the color tunnel where the memories funnel in.  We rewind back, watching the past, progress to the present and the continual disturbance.  The film strip plays sporadically and without warning, disarms the army.  We didn’t morph into what was intended.  We’ve pretended for years, watching you, and now we see all the way through.  You’ve been duped.

(cover art by Simona Ruscheva “MPD” oil on canvas)

Born Crazy: A Video Poem

“You’re crazy.”

How often have you heard this phrase thrown around, either flippantly, in jest or to victim blame someone who has overcome or is recovering from abuse?

I heard this often as a post-cult teenager and well into my adult years. While I was actually dealing with the behavioral aftermath of being an extremely abused child, instead of receiving support, caring and nurturing I was told that I was crazy. When a child is told enough times that they’re mind is insane, we begin to believe it.

This poetry piece is from my spoken word album, Dusted Shelves, which is available on Amazon in paperback and c.d. Written in 2013, it is a representation of a life by which I was conditioned to believe that I was crazy.

Some abuse survivor work is considered to be dark and oddly psychotic. This piece would fall under that theme.

**Trigger Warning for those who are sensitive to these themes**

Born Crazy

Child Abusers Rarely Take Ownership of Their Crimes

If my mother were alive, and you were to ask her if she allowed her children to be abused or if she abused her children, her answer would most likely be (with Bible in hand), “Absolutely NOT!”

She would then most likely go on to tell you what difficult children my siblings and I were to raise, along with a myriad of other excuses to support the gross denial covering the guilt she couldn’t face.   This is what abusers do; blame the child, and all too often, naive adults actually believe it.

A couple of years ago, a friend who grew up in the same cult as me had a conversation with a woman who knew me when I was a child. My friend asked the woman about my time as a child at the second compound I was taken to in Alaska, and the woman said this:

“Well, she was quite a boisterous child and was always in trouble a lot.”

She victim blamed a child who she witnessed be abused and yet still, thirty plus years later, the denial runs as deep as the ocean. What should we have expected? That our abusers would admit to their crimes? What a ridiculous notion. Child abusers rarely admit to their crimes unless they’re caught. Given the chance, they will quickly blame the child.  Witnessing child abuse and doing nothing is just as criminal as participating.

Victim blame a child abuse survivor, and that’s where my patience, kindness and association ends.

I do not ever condone a child abuse survivor having to defend themselves against the abuse they suffered. My fellow child abuse survivors, we’re not mentally ill. Our abusers are. Those who would attack your abuse are in serious need of psychological help themselves.

They lack empathy and understanding. Attacking someone’s child abuse is an extremely apathetic action. I feel we must use our voices to stand against those who would deny the atrocities that we endured as children and that children still endure. We have to stand our ground and not allow children to ever be blamed for the neglect and/or abuse they endure.

Tonight I sit in contemplation, knowing where my passions are, and what makes me feel in a space of forward movement.   I am aware of where I put my time and my energy, for my goal is to always be focused on believing and supporting child abuse survivors.

When a Child Is Trained For Death

On October 7th, the world was supposed to end again, as it has been for centuries, since Christianity unleashed its torrent of mind control on humanity.

When this story hit the internet, there was a lot of laughter and mocking towards it. I agree. It is ridiculous. However, I find the concept of Heaven and Hell to be ridiculous period. With the state of the planet as it is in now, humans have already created a scenario much worse than the hell they use to fear control children into compliance. Yet, there’s another aspect of this story that I wonder if you have thought of.

I was a child in an end-times cult. I will tell you this. There was no fun or joking in being a child preparing to die either for Christ, the end of the world or both. I believed that I would die. From the age of three, into my teenage years, it was a given that the world would end, and I, along with all of my family and friends, would endure a painful combustion. It is a rigid circle of mind fuckery from which a child cannot escape. There may be rituals involved, such as drills to teach the children how to behave and pray when the end arrives or even an invasion of some kind where they will be killed.

This is part of how soldiers train for war. They train to die. Why are we allowing this to be done to children? Teaching a child that the world might or will essentially end and that their death might be painful, but it’s all for God, is child abuse.  Add in the Rapture and the hope inside of the child that maybe they’ll get swept up in that, maybe it’ll happen before the end of the world or maybe it’ll happen all at once. The unknown is just as fearfully mind bending.

When will people stop allowing children to be mind-controlled, trained for death and abused under the guise of religious freedom?

“When a child is trained for death they will always see the world through eyes of fear.” Vennie Kocsis, author, “Cult Child“

The Interview Is Here: I Talk “Sam Fife’s Move of God” Cult on Ridder Radio

Click the player below to listen to the two hour interview as I talk with Janaki of The (Not So) Sacred Radio Show about my childhood growing on in a bible based cult.