My Story
Repressed Memories of Sexual Abuse
In the Fall of 1992, I was working
9 to 5, as an Administrative Assistant to a pastor of the church we were attending.
It was a sister church to two very large churches located in Georgia.
We were a new church to the area and had big shoes to fill.
We had a large staff and we only had one secretary to assist me with the hugh responsibilities we had as a featured church in the community.
I also worked for three counselors, who worked through our church.
Choosing a Therapist
|
I had been working for about five months and I started having these feelings of drowning.
I was feeling so overwhelmed at work and at home. At the time our son, who is deaf, was five years old.
My husband was traveling a lot on business. So I felt the pressure from all angles.
I had to call one of the counselors about one of his patient's. He was also a friend.
I told him how I was feeling and asked if we could talk together the next day at work. So I made my first appointment ever with a counselor.
It happened to be the next day when he came to work at the church. My appointment was for 11:00 a.m. I had told my pastor/boss about the appointment and he gave me his full support.
I felt so lost in just the first few minutes of my appointment. I knew this counselor, Chuck, and felt he was a friend, but it was strange to be on "this" side of the office door.
I remember playing with my office pen for the whole hour. Chuck suggested I put one of the sofa pillows in my lap. For some reason it felt so safe, like an armor. Now I understand the reason it felt good and safe.
Mostly Chuck asked me questions about my family and childhood, which at that time I considered it normal and happy. I have an older brother, but he spent most of his time working or with friends. So that left me to take the role as head of the house, because my Dad was a truck driver and was gone during the week.
I made the financial decisions for the house. He would leave a blank check for me to pay a few of the bills for repairs or services. My Mom was in the home, but she hated making decisions, so I did when my Dad was out-of-town working.
Chuck told me I was a co-dependant. I was made to be an adult and care taker of my family. This was supposed to be a six session problem to fix-I was even told to read a therapy book. I was going to be well in six weeks!
First Repressed Memories of Sexual Abuse
After that first session I was going to a meeting a couple of days later. While driving down the road I had just a few old memories. Later I learned they were called flashbacks.
It was only a flash of a picture of me as a young child laying down in a straw, make shift bed with my uncle, who in the flashback was a teenager. That is all I saw, but I felt greatly disturbed.
I called Chuck and told him I remembered something that really upset me.. He talked to me for a few minutes then he said we could talk about it the next day.
|
Chuck's therapy approach was the "peel the layers of an onion back" deal.
I grew to hate this therapy! There was never an end to the onion!
I began feeling like there was no way out, but to kill myself. There was this one place on my drive home that reminded me of that everyday. I shared my thoughts with Chuck and we tried to work through them to find a better solution to my feeling of killing myself. It worked, but it didn't make the thoughts go away.
My issues were getting in the way of my working. I switched roles with the secretary/receptionist and I changed to do her job and she took mine. It was actually a relief, because the "issues" were overwhelming.
The depression was getting so bad that Chuck sent me to a psychiatrist for medicine management. I was prescribed Prozac, but I couldn't take it, due to having chest pain. For the anxiety he prescribed Xanix.
To me the Xanix was a miracle drug. After about a month, I was on a medicine to wake me up and another to help me through the day and more to help me eat.
Eating had gotten to where it made me sick. Then there were more pills to help me go to sleep. I was on several pills just to live. I thought I needed to have help, but it became a crutch and I was just walking through the day in a cloud.
My First Experience with a Psychiatric Hospital
The symptoms of suicide kept growing and it lead up to my first hospitalization in a psychiatric hospital. The one good thing that happened during that stay was meeting a new psychiatrist, who was a Christian and he believed less medicine was best.
|
This is were my life changed. Dr. Crews methods were more like "let's talk about it and move on" therapy. I finally felt like I was making progress.
After my stay in the mental hospital, I stopped working. My depression and anxiety was so bad it interferred with me holding down a job.
So, I applied and was awarded Social Security Disability. I was in therapy with Chuck for about three years and I had two more hospitalizations for feeling of suicidal thoughts. Also, I had begun cutting myself.
Divorce
My family life was taking a hard hit. My husband asked me for a divorce. I was shocked. But we proceeded and within a month and a half my nine year marriage was dissolved. He didn't ask for anything, except visitation rights and joint custody of our son.
We had that first year of a love/hate relationship, but our son insisted we do things as a family. He was seven at the time, so my now ex-husband and I worked the situation out to be friends for the sake of our son.
My ex-husband took a job where he would be in Turkey for three months. When he got back our relationship changed. We acted more like we were married by going to each others house, going to movies, going to the Olympics together.
|
We spent most of our free time together, but still lived in separate houses.
During this time I was in therapy with a different person a woman, Lynn.
While working with Lynn, everything was going good. I had gone to school to learn to be a Medical Office
Assistant and got a job working in a counseling group.
I was really good at my job, working hard and really enjoyed it. But after working for three months, I started having new memories and my depression was getting worse. My thoughts of suicide were growing. I was hospitalized again.
This time for two weeks. After about a year Lynn move her office across town, so I asked Dr. Crews if I could see him for therapy. He agreed to this and it changed my life.
His methods were more like, "let's talk about it and move on" therapy. I finally felt like I was making progress. I finally put my memories and issues about my Uncle to rest. I had dealt with everything my Uncle had done to me. After this I just saw Dr. Crews for med management.
Everything was good with my ex-husband and I were getting back together and it seemed life was good again. I had no idea of what was coming my way.
New Repressed Memories of Sexual Abuse
My Grandfather had gotten ill with Alzheimer. He was a little violent and I started having new memories. I couldn't sleep, so I called Dr. Crews for an appointment.
I got some stronger medicines to sleep, but nothing seemed to work. My depression and anxiety started getting out of control. I felt like I was losing control.
|
Over the five years of divorce we grew up together. You know the little things that annoy you about each other may have been big before-really weren't!
We do not recognize our divorce. We had a strange divorce anyway. We were together more than we were apart. Our son saw to that!
Just because we got remarried didn't mean my issues were gone-they were better, but they were about to get worse. I was having new memories of abuse by my grandfather. Then of abuse by my father-who I worshipped!
I began coping the only way I knew how-hurtful self abuse. I began cutting again and abusing my medication. I just wanted the memories to stop! I was blaming myself for what happened and accepting the responsibility for what happened to me. I felt and accepted it was all my fault.
I justified it that I must have like it or it would not have continued for 22 years. I felt I had been reward by my abusers giving me gifts, driving expensive cars. After all wasn't that a good gift for a good girl!
That is what I told Dr. Crews every time I saw him. I don't know who I was trying to convince me or him. I started therapy again with him, but I was hiding these therapy sessions from my husband. We had just gotten remarried and I didn't want my husband to think he had made a mistake.
Our son, who is deaf, attended a local deaf school, where he was picked up every morning by a bus at 6:30 a.m. and didn't return home until 4:15 p.m. So what I would do is go see Dr. Crews after dropping my son off at the bus stop.
|
During this whole time I hid it from my husband. Don't get me wrong-my husband saw the depression and anxiety.
I just didn't tell him about the sessions with Dr. Crews, which grew to be two to three times a week.
When I cut-I cut in places that no one could see. They were always hidden by clothes.
I had my reasons for cutting, but the average person would never understand.
I was honest with Dr. Crews though he knew about the cutting he would ask me about it every week. If I ever got an infection he would treat it for me. I mean if my personal care doctor knew I would have landed in a mental hospital. But he understood the reason for the cutting.
We did have a pact between us though. It was just as binding as a legal contract. If I ever wanted to hurt myself so bad it would cause death I had to personally speak to him first.
He knew he could trust me because I had never lied to him before. He even gave me his pager number, so if I had those feels I knew I could talk to him first and maybe, just maybe he could help me through my "moment". There were many phone calls over the next few years.
It seemed the safer I felt to tell him all the secrets the more abuse that came out. We would have session after session about new memories that I had journaled about.
After about one year I had remembered so many different people (mostly my brothers and his teenage friends, sitters, a few uncles and my sitter's husband and his poker buddies).
|
I actually made a list of what I called at that time "my therapy list".
By the time every person I remembered who had sexual, psyically and mentally abused me it totaled to 18 men and women.
Dr. Crews told me on more then one occasion I was one of the worst abuse victims he had ever worked with.
We discovered I had learned to repress what was happening to me.
While the abuse was happening I locked me-the child inside-in a safe place in my mind, so she did not have to be there.
I had a name for the person who was getting abused, "Sabrina".
She saved me.
I want to make a point here. Don't misunderstand me I do not have multiple personalities. "Sabrina" was a way to tune out the abuse at the time it was happening unless you are an abuse survivor, you may not understand. it is a way to survive.
There was 22 years of sexual abuse. It lasted until the year I got engaged. It sounds like I should have been able to stop it by that age, but after so many years of abuse and sometimes threats made against your life if you didn't give in-you do what you have to do to survive.
There were two groups of abusers, who took pleasure in abusing me in a gang type situation. One group were middle age poker buddies of my sitter and the other was my brother and five of his teenage friends. They were a bad group, because they were drunk or high when the they abused me.
We moved away across town, so I no longer saw those men and boys again, but I still had abusers in my house-my Dad and brother. But there were a few stray abusers along the way.
Dr. Crews was excellent during this time. He meet with me as many times as I needed. We spoke hundreds of times by phone. He was so kind and understanding.
|
I never told my husband that
just about every single day I would have to face the decision to live or die. I thought I would never find happiness again. There were even times I would have my pistol in my car. Dr. Crews always knew what to say to me, so I never had to use it.
In January 2003, my husband was told the office he worked in was moving to Colorado. You had to be invited to go and we were.
It was exciting to be moving, but the closer to the time it got to do the actual move the more nervous I got. I was meeting with Dr. Crews twice a week and on the phone with him everyday. Sometimes two or three times a day! We moved May 14, 2003.
I did okay in the beginning, but the depression and anxiety got worse. I got to where I would not eat. I was punishing myself by withholding food. That was something that was done to me as a child.
|
In January of 2004, I started hitting bottom. I would go days without eating and was cutting almost every day. There was one week I barely remember.
It started off with James going out-of-town. I was not eating and only drinking water. I tried to take an overdose of old medicine.
When I went to bed I felt like I was having a heart attack, but I must have went to sleep.
The next day I told Dr. Crews in a fax what I tried to do and he called me that night. I only remember bits and pieces of the rest of the week. I know I kept thinking if I just keep drinking cold water I would be okay.
Our son told James a lot of things that happened that week, but I didn't remember any of it. The next week James went back out-of-town and the week started off good, but by Wednesday, January 14, 2004, I felt I couldn't go on.
My Last Suicide Attempt
I got my husband's pistol and called Dr. Crews. I told him I was going to shoot myself and hung up on him. I don't remember if I called him back or if he called me back, but he talked to me. I don't remember what he said, but I put the gun away and threw the bullets away in a neighbors trash can.
I called a friend and she was coming over. I heard a knock at the door and when I opened the door there were three or four policemen there. I let them in and they told me they felt my life was in danger and they placed me in handcuffs and took me to the hospital.
They took me to the emergency room. I remember being asked a lot of questions and seeing someone from the metal hospital next door. I told her I just wanted to go home and of course she said no.
|
They called my husband, who was out-of-town and told him what had happened.
A friend of ours picked up our son from school and he stayed the night with them.
My husband caught the next flight home. I was taken to the mental hospital.
The doctor I had in the hospital was okay-he helped me get back in my right state of mind. In the hospital I finally realized I really didn't want to die, I just wanted all the madness to stop.
The biggest mistake I made through the years was not sharing the truth with my husband. I found he was a true friend in times of trouble.
Choosing an Alternative Therapy
Before I could leave the hospital I had to have a counselor for therapy. The hospital found me one, but after a few sessions I realized he was not helping me.
He just wanted me to write things down, but he was not helping me resolve anything. So, my Pastor at that time, recommended a woman to me. I made an appointment with her and she had a psychiatrist to send me to for medicine management, so I was all set.
At the second session I felt more sad and upset then helped. I told my husband how I felt and we decided maybe it was time to stop therapy. If I left more upset than when I came, it only seemed reasonable therapy was not working for me any more.
I canceled my next appointment and began to rely on my husband for my emotional needs. If I was having a moment that I couldn't handle on my own, I would call him. This turned out to be such a blessing!
We worked out his traveling schedule. He gave me the phone numbers to the plants he traveled to for work. We made a good team!
A New Life
In the mean time I found the most wonderful primary care doctor, who I started seeing for my general health, but also my psychiatric medicines.
She is not only a fantastic doctor, but a wonderful person.
She is a Christian, too and she really knows her medicine. I feel I am so lucky to have Dr. Arnsberger in my life at this time.
Now don't misunderstand me stopping therapy may not work for everyone-only you can be the judge of that. But there comes a time in your life when you just need to let go of the past
|
I have been seeing her since May 2004, and I saw her once per week for one year for 30 minutes each visit.
We would talk about what was going on in my life at that time and adjust my medicine, if needed.
After the first year, I only saw her as needed. I still have "moments", like Summers and the month of October, but now they are more manageable.
I have created a safe and supportive team around me. I still use my strategies and break through's to keep me safe and healthy, and it can work for you!