Saturday, July 11, 2015

Anger

Trigger warning: This post contains some description of the physical impact of violence. It may be triggering to some.

For quite a few months my left hip has been bothering me.  Not severe pain, just a nagging ache which often prevents me from being able to lift my leg into the car or to sit comfortably.  My massage therapist told me that the surface muscle and the subsurface muscle were very tight and constricted.  She has worked on it every month, giving me some relief, but still the hip bothered me.  She then suggested that there may be something more structural going on.


So onto a chiropractor.  She also noticed how tight these underlying muscles were but also found some weirdness when she tested for range of motion, bending my leg in every possible, and some impossible directions. She asked if I had experienced any sports injuries, to which I said no.  And so she sent me for xrays.


Yesterday I went back and was told that my hip shows many old fractured lines, scarred over, filling with arthritis and a pelvis that is out of alignment.  The chiropractor just looked at me and said “you don’t remember any trauma to your hip?”


Well when you put it that way . . .


And once again I got body slammed back in time as the memories came flooding back.


I have done a lot of work dealing with the emotional impact of violent gang rape.  In fact, this new revelation about my hip would have sent me to a whimpering, fetal PTSD mess just a couple of years ago.  Fortunately I am now in a much better place emotionally.  


But physically I am feeling it and it is really starting to piss me off.  


The first revelation of how much physical damage I sustained came when Martha and I decided to have children and I found out that so much internal damage had been done to my body that I could no longer have children.  At the time this news didn’t seem to impact me much as I was still very much in a black hole and numb and Martha was willing to step up to pregnancy.  Now, quite suddenly, I am feeling an overwhelming sense of loss.


I always knew I had a bridge on my lower left jaw but I never remembered how I lost the teeth or even having the bridge work done.   It wasn’t until I started exposure therapy that I remembered the kick that loosed the teeth and then the horrifying feeling of gagging on the teeth and drowning in the blood.  It was that pivotal moment when the dissociation happened and something in me split forever.    


Years later I began having a lot of pain in my left foot and found out that it had been shattered and never healed correctly. Exposure therapy also had me remembering the sound of that boot cracking the bones.  Today my foot is filled with arthritis and quite painful if I walk on it too long.


And now its the hip.  I cannot sit for too long and the pain often wakes me at night.

I am having difficulty with the realization that this will now haunt me to the end of my days and there is no escaping it.  For years and years my mind suffered, pulling me into frightening
black holes with every trigger. I put myself through hell to finally get some relief.  Now my body is letting me know how much it too has suffered.   


I have finally reached a point of anger.


I have already paid the price for this.  I have already put myself through years of excruciating therapy. I have already suffered enough loss because of this one event.  Why do I still have to deal with this?


Yes, I am having a pity party.  


And I am angry.

Not a yelling, screaming, shaking my fist kind of anger. I think I have long been afraid of allowing any anger out. If you asked my family they would have difficulty listing even one time that I have ever raised my voice. Sometimes I think that I have buried anger so deep that to open it now would be terrifying, like a huge dam breaking. But there is something deep inside that is angry.  Very, very angry.  I am not sure how to handle it but I sense that this may be the final step in my healing.

18 comments:

  1. I'm going to write you an email soonest. In the meantime, please know that I am right here, with you.

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    1. Thank you for the email and, most especially, your friendship.

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  2. Anger is a necessary step in the healing process. So, may anger move you onward.

    I am angry with you.

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    1. Thank you. Expressing it seems to be the hardest part.

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  3. My heart is with your heart as I read this post...I've been ANGRY for you since I first stumbled upon your words and as I have gotten to know you, it has only increased. I think it it's only logical that now that your mind has dealt with the worst of it, your body can start remembering too. I'm sorry. For me, I have a hard time with yoga classes that focus on the hips - I end up in a sobbing heap at the end of every single one I've ever had the misfortune to stumble into. It's just too painful for me, the body memories and they are so overwhelming as to make me feel like I'm drowning sometimes. Hugs and love and light as you work through this next stage of your healing. I know it won't be easy but have so much faith in you.

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    1. It's funny, a yoga teacher just recently said to me "so much of our emotion is stored in the pelvic region" I think the universe is conspiring to teach me something as I hear this message over and over in so many different forms.

      Thanks for the hugs and love and light. They are always welcome and always appreciated.

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  4. I wish you much strength as you move through this next part of your journey. I have only read your blog for a few months now but have so much respect for you. Your life is a work of great beauty which you have woven with and over and alongside all that showed up in it. I know that prayers and wishes are real and have impact. And I know that many are the prayers and wishes that send you strength along your path.

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    1. I think if you have known great pain it is easier to see and appreciate great beauty.

      Thank you for the wishes and prayers.

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  5. i read this, 8. i don't want you to think i didn't. what happened to you is so painful to know that sometimes it makes the whole world unfair and vicious. but in some round-about way, your spirit and depth and engagement in life over and over turns me around and i end up feeling good about humanity. you do that.

    love
    kj

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    1. You make me cry. In a good way.

      I know that everyone has experienced pain or is carrying some burden. But there is still so much beauty out there.

      I wish I had the answers.

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  6. Your anger is appropriate, 8. I am angry with you. It is righteous anger. The frustration is in not knowing where to direct that anger.
    I'm sorry that your hip hurts. I'm sorry that your foot hurts and that all of the aches and pains are coming back to remind you of that horrific time.
    You have done so much hard work around this hideous event. It is supremely unfair that the sequelae of trauma still haunts and hurts you.
    I wish there were even one thing that I could do to change this.
    Sending love to you, my friend...
    XOXOXOXXO

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    1. You are my friend. It is more than enough.

      xoxoxox

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  7. I've never seen you as having dormant anger. I see a lot of anger in you and I have always been in awe of how you have taken control of it and aimed it in appropriate directions. And you are tending so beautifully to your body now, taking care of it, giving it ways to heal. I admire your strength of spirit because this could all have ended so differently but you wouldn't let it go that way.

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    1. I think you are giving me way too much credit but you have also given me something to think about.
      Thank you.

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  8. I read your blog sometimes but don't think I've ever commented before. I am always shocked and amazed at what people survive. I had no idea that this had happened to you and I'm so sorry it did. I can't believe people do things like that to others and yet I know that it happens. I can't imagine why you wouldn't be angry. I was assaulted once at work by a doctor and I took up kick boxing. In my mind I beat the shit out of that doctor over and over for six months while I practiced my kick boxing.

    I'm so sorry.

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    1. Thank you for reading and for taking the time to comment.

      I do remember times of fantasy when I could round up all the evil people and send them out of our universe. I think those visualizations help us heal too.

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  9. Working through your anger and resentment and sorrow about such a horrifying event hardly qualifies as a "pity party." PTSD just goes like that, in waves. I'm so sorry yu're having to deal with it on an ongoing physical level.

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  10. This is the first time I have read your blog. I am so angry FOR you as I am reading this that I could spit. Anger seems like a perfectly appropriate response to the nightmare you have survived. Like Secret Agent Woman says, "working through" anger, sorry, resentment is not a pity party. It is the hard work that it is necessary if one is to come out on the other side of trauma. You did a great job writing what must have been a difficult blog post to write.

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