We'll here it is, September 19, 2012. Nine
months since I began my quest to get organized and what a quest it has been.
Now for most people, when a person says that they need to get organized it
generally means getting your home, office, or maybe even your storage locker
you purchased to house the extra stuff that your home doesn't have room for.
But what if getting organized meant, organizing your material things and your
mental things? For years I saw the physical clutter in front of me and never
understood the mental clutter that was the cause. I've walked around in my life
in this half-baked type thought process without any answers as to why. Could it
be that I was just lazy? A terrible homemaker? Depressed? Overwhelmed? Maybe
all of the above - I just couldn't tell you. But what I do know is that when
your mind is unorganized, the life around you will be the same. Now I'll be
honest, there were times that I should have posted my before and after clutter projects, that I have
been working on between the gaps in my blogging, but recently I've been trying to cope with a past situation that has found its way to the forefront of my memories that have me feeling deeply ashamed and embarrassed and what's worse this event dictated who I was all these years. I share this with you today, as it is time to move forward and that someone may be going through the same thing as myself. I'm not looking for pitty and you can't change a thing, that the past is what it is and all I can do now is try to accept and move on. Easier said than done. I believe it is important that when someone sets out to do something and they are not consistent, sometimes there is an underlining reason of explanation that helps those around you to understand and offer support.
I chose to go back to a therapist to help
delve into the mysteries of my mind. Why do I do what I do and say what I say.
Why did I feel like I had two people living in this body of mine? In late July
I discovered why. When a person has experienced a traumatic event in their
life, most times they deal with the event and move on slowly in the life.
Others, for whatever the reason, block the event with the hopes that the
memories will never return. It take a lot of work when a person blocks a pain,
a hurt, a sorrow that in their mind they just don't want to handle and that is
where my problems began and left me, for years on a path of extreme behaviors
created by the mind to keep a memory from returning. Now when my therapist told
me that it was possible for people to go on for years this way, I looked at her
as if she was a fool, but in things that I wrote and said she began to see a
pattern that resembled sexual abuse/assault. I could not recall anything major
when she spoke of this, but I do remember feeling panicked, the room began to
spin and my breath quickened.
I couldn’t get out of her office fast enough and
was happy to know that I was only being seen every two weeks. Personally I
always believed that it was my cancer diagnosis that resulted in a duel
personality - one happy and one sad. When I felt sad or scared, then the extreme
happy personality would shove the other personality out of the way and take
over. Yet when my therapist asked me how long I felt I had this feeling of
being two people, I responded “Since I first got to Adak.” Well now that ruled
out my cancer being the cause of my extreme behavior, but what in heaven’s name
happened in Adak other than the typical everyday military life and drama, that
would make me feel that I need to think the way that I have over the past 21
years – It just didn’t add up in my mind, however could explain the excessive
need to return to the island. I have always felt there was something I needed
to go get, or find, but couldn’t explain it.
I’d have dreams about Adak that were extremely
vivid, I could smell, hear, taste, touch, I was there but would wake up very
upset when my dreams would take me into a club that I used to work at called
the Husky Club, which I spoke about in my book “Through the Barracks Window”,
but did not recall this traumatic event that I am about to share with you, until just this summer thanks to close Seabee friend
who finally provided me with the answers that I had missed placed in my mind to
protect myself from the hurt. When I asked him why he waited so long to tell me
what he knew his response was – I didn’t want to be the bad guy and hurt my
friend with what I knew and that it seemed that I had just moved passed it and
he didn’t want to bring it up.” It was after talking to him, all the memories
that I had banished away behind a locked door in my mind, where once again in
front of me twenty-one years later. He never knew that I had just blocked it, I
had never faced it and I should have from the start. I am finding with each day I chose to talk
about what happened to me, the clutter in my mind and in my home is rapidly diminishing.
So what happened to me you asked? A man took something from me without asking
as he knew the answer would be NO! AND NO MEANS NO!
I was a DJ after my military work/duties, at
the Husky Club. I was 23 years old, single, and doing what I loved after my Seabee work - I got to play music for others to enjoy. My first few nights working there I was in a training type of
status – having to learn how to fade one song into another, how to turn the
equipment on and off, and getting over my fear of talking on the microphone. I
was a fantastic DJ – when nobody was in the building. We are all great at something when nobody is around. Now we all
have those mom moments, you know the ones when you’re about to do something and
you hear your mother’s voice in the back of your mind telling you to think
before you do it. Well I had hit one of those moments head on. I was still very
timid about working the equipment and decided that I would stay after the club
closed to go over the closing process one more time before going solo. I
trusted the guy who was training me – and that was my downfall. He had brought me a beer, which had
already been opened, that he had got while the bar tender was closing. He was
so gitty when he said, “Here, this is one of the perks of being a DJ at the Husky
when you are the one closing up the place – we get free beer!” I smiled and happily
accepted it.
The music that was playing began to sound
like and can best be described as white noise. That is when my happy moment and my
love for music, while the song Diamonds and Pearls, by Prince, (Which is why - Liz, I hated it when you'd request this song endlessly over the next four years I was there, and you knew I wouldn't play it. Now It has me wondering if you knew what happened? What I am told now is that my reaction to your request then could be considered a trigger and that I didn't understand why the song bothered me because my mind had chosen to block the memory of how it related.) It continued to
play and my body was slowly becoming limp. The music sounded like it was beginning to fade on and off. I remember feeling
tired and dazed and once in a great while I could see colored lights flash
before my eyes as he spoke, “Nobody has to know.” The lights and white noise were also dreams I would have but could never find the relevance of them to my life. I didn’t like the
feeling of him touching me as he took a hold of me to lead me across the dance floor to another room, but I didn’t have any strength to pull away. I
remember seeing the ladies room, but he took me into the back office with a
mattress on the floor. I hated the way
he felt on top of me, but I couldn’t scream for help! I hated the scent of his cologne,
but couldn’t get fresh air! I hated the sound of his voice telling me how
beautiful and sexy I was! I HATED IT ALL! I HATED HIM! I was filling with rage
while feeling completely helpless. I wanted to strike him, hurt him, scream at
him, pull his hair, but my body just lay there – numb. I could feel the warmth
of my tears pool into the corner of my eyes and then run down the side of face
into my ears and then down my neck. I tried to just fixate on the warmth of my
tears and he took want he wanted from me physically and sexually. He was a
thief in the night never to be trusted again.
It was then I felt myself morf into a split person, just like being cut completely in half from head to toe. I told
myself to think of something else it will all be over soon and you will forget
about it. I remember going deep within myself looking for things that made me
happy as he continued to have his way with me. I don’t remember when the thief
finished with me, but what I do remember is constantly looking for the pink
shirt that I wore that night that was never to be found again. I remember
hearing loud banging on the door and soon a man’s voice saying to me, “I’m
sorry I left you alone with him, I’m so sorry, will you ever forgive me.” I
never looked up to see his face, I knew the voice and that he worked there, but I didn't know him personally. He insisted that I call the police, but I just
wanted to go back to my barracks room never to come out again. My personality was always positive when I finally went back to work, I refused to deal with what had happened, however my dislike to be touched by people became extreme. I tried dating guys while on the island, but I couldn't find the ability to connect and the idea of sex sickened me.
When the man I am now married to today, arrived on the island in 1992, I had pretty much given up on men all together. Until the night that I met him. I honestly feel that was the night that my mind had blocked what had happened to me months earlier. My husband's touch is the only touch I wanted and would accept. He had a special quality unlike the others I had dated - his hugs made me feel 100% safe and still does to this very day. I never reported what had happened to me and by the time I had met my husband, I had completely blocked what had happened, but trust me, people on the base must have known which may, or
may not, explain why they were so upset that I got married only knowing a guy
three months. Maybe they believed I married him because I was running away from
the pain of what happened. I’ll set that record straight – How can someone run
from something they don’t remember?? I married my husband, because I love him
and so very much in love with him and I don’t want anyone else. It hurts me to
think that still after all these years, a person who took something from me,
still was taking from me mentally after all of these years and my friends and
family had to suffer while I struggled with what the doctors believe were/are symptoms of P.T.S.D. for years and
didn’t know or remember why.
To my friend
who found the courage to share what they knew about that tragic part of my life
on the Rock and then also let me know that I was not the only one who had been taken
advantage of at the club – I thank you. I am sure it was hard to finally reveal what
you knew, but please understand I could never be mad at you and I am so
thankful that it was you who told me. It will take me a long time to actually
say the four letter "R" word that describes what happened to me, but I have given
the information/documentation to the right people to help me move passed the memories of the
event and finally be the "one personality" me I used to be. You my friend have given me a new
light on life and myself and my family thank you.
I tell myself that with each improvement, accompanied by music that inspires me to stay on a positive road another spark of happiness shines. These are a couple of my many favorites to get me motivated and helped me attacked the Spare bedroom madness.
I know the process takes time and with the support that I have from my friends and family, I will overcome this. I have not given up my goal to be organized by the 2013 and I promise you...I WILL DO IT! I may not blog every day, but I do my best to write at least twice a week to keep you updated on this progress. I know - you will not be disappointed.
Below are before and after pictures of the dreaded spare bed room/office clutter hell that I battled for months, but is now in an excellent example of what happens when you let your mind go somewhere positive and your heart follows.
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| Looking at this I see the clutter that was in my mind. Kinda gives a person whole new perspective when someones asks you - "What the hell are you thinking?" |
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| There is peace in the Valley - Let's hope it lasts. |
“Combat and rape, the public and private forms of organized social violence, are primarily experiences of adolescent and early adult life. The United States Army enlists young men at seventeen; the average age of the Vietnam combat soldier was nineteen. In many other countries boys are conscripted for military service while barely in their teens. Similarly, the period of highest risk for rape is in late adolescence. Half of all victims are aged twenty or younger at the time they are raped; three-quarters are between the ages of thirteen and twenty-six. The period of greatest psychological vulnerability is also in reality the period of greatest traumatic exposure, for both young men and young women. Rape and combat might thus be considered complementary social rites of initiation into the coercive violence at the foundation of adult society. They are the paradigmatic forms of trauma for women and men.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The aftermath of violence--from domestic abuse to political terror
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The aftermath of violence--from domestic abuse to political terror
