It is the Christmas season. A time of warmth and family for some, but also a time of loneliness and depression for others. For me this year, it is a little of both.

I spent this evening at church helping herd sheep, goats, and one very stubborn donkey into and out of the living nativity scene. Last years pageant was a very emotional one for me. When I was a teenager we had a similar pageant, started by the same pastor that began the tradition here. I had only been attending the church here for a couple of months last Christmas. Hell had been breaking loose inside of me over past abuse issues as I began building a relationship with a new pastor in the same denomination. I remember sitting and wondering, "Would I still be around next year for the pageant." Now I wonder about about 2008.

Tonight brought back a lot of thoughts of this past year. Times with Tom, trying to work through my fears and emotions; phone calls to Bob, my first abuser; and finally a day of confrontation and closure for me as I faced Bob with Tom by my side. It has been quite a year.

I find myself wondering where I will be next year. Will more issues be settled inside of me? Will I finally have closure with the denomination as a whole? Will I have finished dealing with the shame I have carried for so long over the second pastoral sexual relationship?

I find myself now in the thick of dealing with that second relationship. Tonight while herding the very stubborn donkey, my hand was caught between the rope and the stall we were trying our best to tug him in to. I yelled pretty loudly as the rope began to feel more like a vice. A couple of blood vessels were popped but some ice and Gladys' wrapping it and it felt a lot better.

Gladys is Tom's wife. She is also the church nurse. And, I am transferring my emotional stuff all over her. Transference is one of my best accomplishments! Helpful when I realize it and can use it to find freedom.

Minton's wife Sue was also a nurse and one time wrapped my knee for me after an injury offering me the same kind intervention. The replay of history hit my emotions before they hit my understanding. I went into the restroom and cried over the pain I was feeling without a clue as to why I felt such intense sadness. An hour or so later and the light bulb came on. The parallel between the two situations had brought long buried emotion to the surface.

I don't know how to explain to those of you that read my blog, the power of past emotions. I wanted to run to Gladys for approval. I wanted to apologize for something I never did to her. I feel so much shame over my behavior with Minton and how I chose to stab Sue in the back when I crossed the line with her husband.

Shame is surfacing everywhere. My past two nights sleep have been interrupted by multiple dreams of abuse and agents seeking me out for abusing other children. I have woken with shudders of grief, waves of confusion, and a nauseated stomach.

Yet, all this is good. Hard but good. It has taken 7 years of work to get here to the place that I can now face this tragedy. I know that I am on the verge of a tremendous healing. I feel so alone. I know that my therapist, Dan, understands. I wonder if others who have dealt with this type of issue understand or am I truly alone in this venture. And I am aware that many are in my life who have no clue as to what I am dealing with or the tragic depth of pain and destruction it has carved into my soul.

Pastoral sexual misconduct caused me to lose so much. I just want someone to put their arms around me and understand.

Shrinking my Shame

Just a little bit of a pun in this title..... as I just spent an hour with my shrink working on shrinking my shame.

Dan's great, and I continue to grow in my appreciation of him. Ever encouraging, he picks up on what is important, sees my anger, feels my pain, and understands the depth of it all. He never thinks something is not a big deal. He sees past the outside to what occurred inside.

Tonight I finally uncloaked some details of my relationship with Minton. I expected the most difficult part to be the sexual details but I ended up sharing, remembering little of that. What wrenches itself up and out of me is the immense fear and shame. Fear of being caught. Shame of what I am doing - not doing, did. But that Freudian slip reveals the immediacy in the emotion associated with these happenings of 30 years past.

I recalled our first tryst. The shame of giving in to his request that I come by his house on my way to work. I described the day he reserved a room at a hotel just out of town. He lied about where he was and took the day off. I remember the stares as we swam in the pool. I remember the dark headed lady that kept looking at me and knew the truth. I remember the horrible desire to hide and run but simultaneously feeling trapped and unable to. Perhaps worst of all, I remember the day his parents returned from their vacation early and found me at their house waiting on Minton to return from the store with me something to drink. I remember the horror I felt as I pushed opened the locked screen and ran out the door and ran on and on until I finally stopped exhausted and sat on a hill and waited on Minton to come and find me. I remembered the sick feeling.

I sat holding the pillow tonight wanting to throw up while Dan summarized all the emotion I had described: fear and more fear and shame - mounds of it. The horror of being trapped in something that I could not find the ability to end. The driven neediness inside warring with the anxiety - neither winning. To walk away meant complete aloneness. The church had long ago dumped me. I could not do it until my fear became so great that I couldn't not do it.

I left Dan's tonight with a smorgasboard of emotion. All I had uncovered was still fresh but right along with it was this fantastic relief from having shared it with someone else - not just the words but the vivid emotions that accompany the memories.

A Short Update

My normal desire to post blogs has taken a vacation for some reason, but I felt I needed to go ahead and push it in order to keep folks up to date.

A week ago, I emailed the regional minister and asked for an update as to the appointment of the task force and the answers to my questions. He had promised me that when the regional assembly was past he would get back to me. I sent an empasioned email asking for what he had promised. Reg immediately responded with the fact that the task force was appointed but they were waiting until the first of the year to start meeting.

As far as my questions, the ones I asked in August that he failed to answer and has still left unanswered, I had to send another to get a response. I found out that he was not in the office but out of town at his mother's house who had just died. He once again promised to get me answers as soon as he returned.

Who in Bob's church was notified about his misbehavior? Was the policy followed or not? If I do not hear by the first of the year, I am not sure what to do. I know that I probably have a legal case. Will I do it if that is what it takes? The biggest question is what will it cost me if I do sue and what will it cost me if I do not.

On the other side of the coin, I just heard from my therapist, Dan. There is some unsurety as to my insurance paying for an more sessions this year. The association Dan works with is supposed to be finding out, but he has not heard anything back from them. He will ask again Monday but told me to just plan on showing up Tuesday. If the insurance won't swing it, then he will throw it in for a Chritmas present. Yes, you heard that clearly. He is an amazing man.

Most of my spare time has been quickly taken up by Christmas buying, wrapping, and decorating with a little party going and some school work added. I am looking forward to a 2 week break as much as the kids are.

My eyes are slowly closing. It has been a busy day. Happy Advent!

Di

A Friend's Story

Mona Brewer is a friend of mine. We have only met on two occasions but we have kept in touch since then. She sent me this link from an Atlanta radio station concerning her illicit relationship for 14 years with a very well know minister named Earl Paulk.

I invite you to listen to her story and think. Think about the power of this kind of relationship in a person's life. Think about how the church must appear to the world.

This is very sad to me.

Here's the link: http://www.allenhuntshow.com/Listen/269-my-uncledaddy-church-with-mona-brewer-chris-krok-edition

Di

Valuable?

The beginning of last summer I posted a story about my friend Bonnie who was in a terrible car accident that almost took her life. Bonnie's life was spared but she still lost a lot. She lost the use of her left arm and hand, though a new surgery is in the plans for next Wed that will help restore her some use and further therapy should help her gain more use of her fingers. She lost her left-side vision. If she looks at your right eye she can see your nose but not your left eye. Thus everything appears dark to her and reading is very difficult. She lost her ability to run but has now regained her ability to walk due to multiple remarkable surgeries on her ankles and knee. She lost her whole summer. She remembers none of it. She lost the beauty of her arms and legs as they are now covered in scars and her left arm had much of the muscle and skin stripped off of it. She lost her teeth though the ones she now has are beautiful. But she is still Bonnie, a gentle and caring person who I was given the opportunity to work beside for 4 years.

As I talked with Bonnie on Tuesday, and celebrated in my heart her survival, she talked of a sense of uselessness. I wanted to scream, "Bonnie, how can you feel useless? You are so important to me! Your very existence is what my whole Thanksgiving is about this year." Instead I calmly pointed out her importance to me and how God is even now using her injury to teach doctors and nurses who will go on to impact others lives. I told her how very important she was and how I had to see her before Thanksgiving Day because my heart was so full of gratitude for her life.

And then I thought. How easy it is for all of us to fall into seeing our value in what we do and accomplish. That is what Bonnie was doing, missing terribly the sense of achievement that comes from teaching young minds. But from my end, Bonnie is valuable just because she is Bonnie. I couldn't quite explain that to her, but the light bulb came on for me. This is how God's sees us, valuable just because we exist. Nothing we do earns His love. Nothing we do defeats it.

He loves me because I exist and am precious to him. So today, beyond celebrating Bonnie's physical life, I celebrate the lesson that her trajedy just taught me. My value is in my being.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Di

Freedom

I continue to work on the shame issues over the relationship with Minton but I am only working on it sporadically. Life has been so very busy at work and home that the time to think is scarce. Though, I also wonder if I have not passed some kind of milestone in being able to work on emotional issues when I choose instead of them devouring me at their whim.

I had a really good session with Dan last night and we continued to talk about my transferential feelings with Tom and their connection to the shame with Minton. I can tell I am making progress in defeating the shame because it isn't so strong as I talk about it. Even now sitting and typing I feel much more at ease. I also recognize that it will take more work to finish this.

I feel a little concerned and guilty that I am in no hurry to hear from the task force on sexual misconduct. I am dreading having to pull all that back out to deal with it again. It is so emotionally draining. I asked Dan what he thought about my change of feeling in this area.

Dan's thoughts were that it is not a problem since I am doing some good work in the moment and one thing on the burner at the time is probably enough for anyone. What I am presently looking at is timely and will further prepare me for the opportunity to share with the church's committee.

When I talk with Dan it feels so good to talk with someone who so thoroughly understands what I am saying. I don't have to work to make myself understood. We flow together. I feel a lot of support and peace in my relationship with him. And I trust him. Nice.

God's timing first with Cheryl and then John and now Dan has been so evident. Each of them has played a role in the work I was doing in that time period that the others would not have been able to play so well. His hand in my healing is an area I am very grateful for this season.

Shame

I have been thinking about the cords of shame and how they have tied me in knots for so many years. Last week when I left Dan's so aware of the shame I felt, I was equally unaware of how to disentangle myself. I truly felt lost even as I had in my dream.

Now that is rather ironic since I had spent years disentangling myself from the cords of shame over my relationship with Bob, but nevertheless I felt equally as lost as I had when facing the original shame. It took a while for the words I wrote in my last post to find their way to my conscious mind but once I wrote them they brought powerful healing.

Cheryl, the therapist who worked for me during the first 5 years of my therapy, told me that she believed shame was at the root of all of our human issues. Cheryl is agnostic and leans toward Budhism. I tell you that because it is very interesting to me that Cheryl's view of humankind's problems is the same as the Christian's God's view. What did Christ bear on the cross but all our shame? What is the new covenant if not one based on grace which is as far from shame as one can get?

The church taught me of God's grace but did a poor job of teaching me how to extend my own personal grace inward. That took Cheryl. "What is God saying?" was changed to "What are you telling yourself, Diane?" I am not negating the first question. I went into therapy knowing well what God was saying long before I met Cheryl. I knew he was a God of grace. I did not doubt his grace filled ways of dealing with me,his child. Yet, I could not figure out how to translate it into my own practice toward myself.

It was truly as if I was adicted to the self hatred. The pathways of despite had eroded themselves into my brain. After years of work, I think differently about myself. I talk differently to myself. I relate to myself with gentleness.

Dan last week focussed on a question asked of me by a pastor after the relationship with Minton was shared with him. "Do you understand the seriousness of what you have done?" Dan asked me what that seriousness was? I fumbled around for an answer and still do not have a clear one. I think further freedom will come as I answer for myself and reframe the meaning of that question.

Lost

Two night ago I dreamed: Rejected by friends at a function in the UGA auditorium and even abandoned by my husband, I got lost in Athens and could not find my way back onto the campus. I tried and struggled and people tried to help but I kept making wrong turns and nothing worked out right. Even when the path was pointed out to me, I either missed it or it somehow evaded my attempts to get on it.

It was a vivid dream and emotionally troubling to me when I awoke. I took the memory with me to my session with Dan. He likes to work with dreams and has taught me that our subconscious often tries to work out our struggles for us while we sleep. At first we talked about the obvious abandonment and I discussed how Minton and the church had abandoned me. Then Dan asked me why UGA was part of the dream. What did it mean to me? What was the connection? I was shocked to realize there was a big one.

I left UGA as a failure in the fall of '75. The bottom was falling out of my grasp on any emotional stability. That summer I had told Minton and his wife about my relationship with Bob, and Minton had begun persuing me physically. I am not sure you can imagine the emotional confusion I felt because I haven't completely grasped it myself. I only know that by that time I was completely and totally convinced that something was terribly wrong with me. I was doomed and dirty and I must have a sign on me that said I was a whore. I went back to school that fall and came very close to a mental/emotional breakdown. I could not study. I could not attend to anything in my classes. For the first time in life and perhaps the only time, my anxiety was so high that I could not function mentally. I shut down. My mind was in a fog. I was alone and since I didn't understand myself what was wrong, I had no idea how to tell anyone else or to ask for help. I was lost.

I thought God told me to go home, drop out, and I told my mom and dad and they were upset but let me. I withdrew from the fall quarter and went home. There is massive shame tied to letting my parents down. There is shame over dropping out. There is shame in mishearing God.

Perhaps it is time to reframe that. Let me try right now:

I was 20 years old and for the second time in my life a pastor was coming on to me. I was confused. Who wouldn't be? I was being told by the second shepherd that I was some kind of whore who attracted this kind of behavior. I was full of anxiety. I believed a lie that I was somehow a big mistake.

That is a LOT for anyone to handle. This was before anyone talked about psychologists or counseling though at the time I did wonder about talking with someone at the clinic. I had heard they had counselors of some kind. But I didn't go. I didn't know what to tell them. I never connected my emotional turmoil with Minton's passes.

If that was today and I knew about a kid going through this, I would talk to her. I would listen. I would offer to put my arms around her and tell her that she is not a whore, that she did not deserve that treatment, that she was not at fault, that it was the pastor's place to hold the boundary and to not push it. I would tell her that all the confusion and fear she feels is ok, that dropping out is ok if that is what she needs to do to get her thoughts and feelings sorted through. I would tell her that the improper advances were not statements about something being wrong with her but rather a loud statement about those two men. And over and over I would tell her she is valuable and loved and not alone any more. She is not abandoned and I am not ashamed of her. I would be there with her and with all her confusion. I wouldn't leave her alone or simply point the path out to her. Instead I would walk with her until she found her way back. And then I would stay with her so she did not have to fear the dark.

And so, in this very moment, I choose to stop running from her and to walk toward her with arms outstretched and acceptance in my heart for her. I choose to no longer hate her and her imperfectness. I see her courage. I feel her pain. And I love her.

Di

Stirrings

Several issues are being moved to the front burner and God is stirring the pot.

The most exciting is that my new online friend, Sandy, is looking at flying down for a long weekend in February. Sandy was a victim of sexual misconduct at the age of 17 and during the same year that I was. We are the same ages. Our stories are eerily similar. Emailing has been a wonderful experience but the thought of connecting for 3 or 4 days face to face sounds like a dream. We are even talking about combining forces on some issues that we think need viewing from a victim's standpoint.

Another issue that is being stirred is not so exciting. The second pastoral relationship in which I was involved seems to still have its claws in me. As my husband and Dan and I sat and talked this evening about some of my issues with sex, I realized that some undealt with shame was still lingering around the relationship with Minton. When I think about Bob I don't feel the same shame. I have dismantled so much shame in the past few years that I can usually spot it in an instance and voila there it is.

I have told of my relationship with Bob on the blog in much more detail than mine with Minton. That is because I cringe still to share about that one. Why? I have some ideas as to why...... I was two years older at the time and I think I still blame myself more fully. I felt a lot of guilt and shame during this relationship while during the one with Bob, while shame and guilt were there, they were deeply buried under the ideology of a 17 year old. I still believed nothing could hurt me. My brain was not fully fuctioning as an adult. I never really connected mentally with how bizarre and wrong the situation was with Bob. With Minton, I knew from the start.

Also, I was caught alone with him one time by my mom very early in the relationship and before anything of any magnitude had occured in the sexual realm. She reacted and thought something wasn't right. Having been raised to believe that life revolved around "what was done" and "what was not done" I had no reference to the fact that sin was sin because it would HURT me. All I picked up on when my mom tried to talk with me about it, was that it embarrassed her. I denied anything being wrong and that was the last time she mentioned it. She just spent a lot of time freaking over stuff that was stupid to freak over. I don't think I mattered as much as "what was done" and "what the neighbors would think." I am still angry about that..... hmm.

This is not going to be fun digging back through this stuff but I know the freedom that has come from dealing with the baggage over Bob so I won't avoid it. I don't guess.

God do I have to do this, again?

I don't think He will push me. He doesn't have to. The overachiever in me pushes. If I don't deal with it voluntarily it will spew out of places I am unaware and at people that don't deserve it.

It is a lot harder to see the power issue and the abuse in the relationship when I was an adult.

Di

Love and Loyalty

I had an awesome vacation camping at the beach with my husband. It was remarkable for two reasons. First, it dawned on me how faithful and loyal my husband has been to me for 27 years. We talked about the fact that he has always stood by me and never even considered abandoning me in the midst of any trial in our marriage. For the first time, his ever present support sunk in to a new level. Out of all my fears of abandonment, I suddenly was able to rejoice in the wonder of my husbands care. As the light bulb came on at a new level, our relationship blossomed over the 5 days. It was a special time together - one of the most special times in our marriage. It was hard to come home.

I returned to an appointment with Dan - my first with him as my official personal therapist. Dan has worked with us as a couple for years and though I have met with him a few times alone when Rob was out of town or sick at the last minute or Dan was filling in when Cheryl was gone and I was in a crisis, this was the first official meeting with him as my own therapist. It felt comfortable, right. Though I am grieving in saying goodbye to John, I am mostly enjoying saying hello to Dan. I am already able to turn some of my emotional baggage from Tom to Dan and it was obvious to me last night that this is a very good thing.

I almost felt normal at the Wednesday night meal and program. Instead of reaching emotionally into Tom or wanting to reach into him and fighting the tendency, I was at peace. Today, when I considered emailing Tom about some thoughts, I stopped and decided to keep that between Dan and me. It isn't that I won't continue to work with Tom. I can't attend church and not do that. However, I think I will be able to keep some of the emotional transference in therapy and deal with it with a professional who is trained to help me do just that. It gets really messy in real life when my emotions, thoughts, and fears from the past invade the present.

I feel much less of a need to explain the sometimes bizarre emotions to Tom now. It is more OK that he doesn't "get it". I just remind myself that Dan very much does get it. With Dan, I don't have to explain it to feel OK with who I am and what I am struggling with. Those of you who have experienced a good therapeutic relationship will understand this. For those who haven't, I'm not sure I can explain it. I could not have understood prior to being in therapy myself. I think if must be the kind of relationship that has to be experienced to understand.

Dan is a Christian and not afraid to say he is. He is less guarded in his "blank wall" needs or beliefs and it feels more natural and normal to me than working with John did. Besides being good at what he does, Dan has a way of always seeing the positive - something that does not come naturally to me. As I shared with him on Tuesday all the fears, struggles, and frustrations of the previous Wednesday at church, he saw the progress. He saw the courage. He saw the getting up and brushing myself off and the determination to move on. I tend to see the mistakes and the never ending struggles to function in the denomination in which I was abused. Dan pointed out to me far more positive than any negative I could innumerate.

I also continue to talk via email with Sandy, my fellow survivor. One day, perhaps, she will write her story and let me post it on this blog. It is amazing how our journeys have paralleled each other's. Talking with her is meeting a need I did not know how to scratch. Being with my SNAP friends has been a powerful experience, yet this one is even more so. Sandy's abuse having happened at the same age of 17, in the same year as mine, at the hands of her youth pastor makes the connection powerful. The fact that she too has confronted her perpetrator and a regional minister in the same denomination, and contacted the national church adds a lot of parallels to share. I am presently reading her written account of those confrontations. I am reading slowly though and not late at night. The connection is so strong that her story sets off a plethora of feelings - anger being the primary one.

Well that should catch my friends up on the happenings of the last week. God continues to work and I continue to be grateful.

Di