We’ve all been depressed. We’ve all grieved. We’ve all gotten stuck. That’s a common human experience. But there’s a point when you must recognize that life goes on and something’s got to change.

There is nothing harder than putting one foot in front of the other when you find yourself in these painful, stagnant seasons of life. But recovery from trauma, moving beyond abuse and grief, occurs within the context of life. This does not imply for one moment that you pretend you don’t hurt or deny that you struggle. These are dark seasons. These times are marked by a sense of fragility, pain, need, and anxiety or fear. That’s reality.

I write this as a human being just like you, and I’ve had my share of heartache, grief, and pain. I’ve had moments when all I wanted to do was curl into the corner and cover myself with the blanket, and sometimes I’ve had to do that, just like everyone else – but not for long. The reality was that I needed to get help and get up.

Being overwhelmed by life feels a lot like the drawings we’ve all seen of the woolly mammoth stuck in a tar pit. That large lumbering creature didn’t notice when that first leg got stuck, so it moved deeper and deeper into that tar and became stranded. Metaphorically, we’ve all had one leg stuck in tar at many points in our lives. That’s understandable. But the longer we stay and the deeper we go, the harder it is to pull free.

To live with a sense of well-being is a proactive process. This is especially challenging when you feel overwhelmed and depressed. Nevertheless, the fact remains that only you can decide to back out of the tar pit. Something as simple as going for a walk, opening your curtains, or sitting on a park bench can make a big difference in how deep you sink into that tar. Something as easy as watching a comedy or making a collage can thin out the sticky, dark places in your heart.

There are times when medication is absolutely appropriate to help with the heavy emotional lifting, but that needs to be supplemented with proactive steps, no matter how small those steps are. “Going through the motions” may seem untruthful, but it’s not. It’s means that you’re taking these tiny steps away from the tar until you eventually discover you’re walking on new, dry land.

If you struggle to see options, seek help from others for ideas. I think this is when careful use of social networks like Facebook and Twitter can really serve as a lifeline. Learn different ways of healthy coping from people like yourself who have managed their difficult seasons. Consider seeing a therapist or clergy, joining a support group or reading group or art group, and participating in community functions. What works to get your foot out of that tar pit will be uniquely yours, but even the tiniest movement on your part can loosen melancholy’s grip. For example, during one extremely painful period of my life, I volunteered to sell dill pickles at our local high school’s football and basketball games. All that was required of me was to show up, pull giant dill pickles from a glass jar, and hand it to a kid, but it helped me to cope and forced me to interact with people.

I’d be interested to know what you’ve found to be helpful when feeling overwhelmed. Please scroll down and share your wisdom with the rest of us. It’s great when we can learn from each other!

© 2012

Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.  

- Michelangelo

10 years of empowering people to reclaim themselves after a broken childhood!

Featuring a dinner of designer cupcakes (eaten first) followed by gourmet hot dogs & lemonade! and the talents of The Itinerant Locals, Chuck Dodson lip synching with puppets, Attorney Brent Miller’s artistic rendition of “101 Fast Food Jokes” book, The Courage Tree Players shadow puppets, Looney Balloney, and more! Finish the night with a Dance As If No One is Looking sock hop.

Please reserve your place, $10 per person, children under 12 $5, by May 14th.

May 18th, 7:00 pm at Low Key Arts, 118 Arbor Street, Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Thank you to our event sponsors:

Simmons First Bank

Amma’s Salisbury Steak was what Anthony craved each lonely Sunday afternoon. The college cafeteria’s lame attempt at Sunday dinner accomplished nothing more that to remind him that he was hundreds of miles away from his grandmother’s ample arms. Massachusetts was not the place for a southern boy raised by a woman of grit and passion and very strong opinion, but that’s where the scholarship took him and that’s where he remained every Sunday after church until he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in American history. He would go on to earn his Ph.D., returning to his beloved Arkansas to write books alongside the Buffalo River about moonshine and gangsters, holy rollers and southern sinners, hillbillies and Civil War heroes, slaves and emancipators. But his crowning accomplishment – a recipe book of Arkansas’ greatest cooks, including his grandmother Amma.

By the time he returned home, wise in the ways of the world, Amma’s time was coming to an end. He knew she didn’t have long when one Sunday afternoon, after church services at the Buffalo United Methodist Church, his grandmother struggled to fulfill her greatest love – preparing a Sunday dinner for her family. Papa T, her husband of sixty-two years, lay in the floor with his great-grandbabies as their home filled with the smells of Amma’s Salisbury Steak.

Anthony, from the time he was knee-high to a cricket, stayed close to Amma’s side each Sunday as she prepared the culinary equivalent on this side of eternity to the Great Wedding Supper of the Lamb (a reference to the feast served in Heaven upon Jesus’ conquest of Satan).  For years, he fetched her home-canned tomatoes and eggs laid that morning by Big Bertha the queen chicken out back. He’d open the packaged ground beef that she special ordered from Fred, the local butcher, and help her rub the bread into crumbs and add the spices.

When her hands got too weak from arthritis, he’d push up the sleeves of his church shirt and mash her concoction until it was ready to pat out into a poor-man’s steak that would melt the heart of a king. Once each steak was properly cooked, Anthony helped Amma  make gravy with the drippin’s that remained in her cast iron skillet. It was a living, breathing thing that had never been touched by soap or scouring pad. Each dish passed on its gifts to the next one that would be cooked in her skillet.

Her Salisbury Steak, Hoppin’ John (rice and field peas), corn on the cob, mashed potatoes with lots of butter, biscuits with home-made pear butter, fried apples, and peach cobbler was a lover that no mortal could compete with in Amma’s family. Papa T’s reward to her for giving him such a lover was to provide the seed that produced three babies, seven grandbabies, and two great-grandbabies. She was forever grateful for that reward, and he was forever in love with his lover’s lover.

Much to the chagrin of his father, who viewed this as a gift for a girl, Anthony received a cast iron skillet from Amma – identical to hers – upon earning his Ph.D.  As if Elijah had passed on his mantel to Elisha, this was the greatest honor he could have ever received. For months and months, he followed her recipe exactly. He duplicated every ingredient and movement witnessed since childhood, but his Salisbury Steak consistently fell short. Good, but not the seduction of an exquisite lover.

And then, it happened. Amma was gone. It was as if the world was suddenly shoved into a soundproof room, the void of voice and verve paralyzed Anthony. From what seemed like the bottom of a fresh water well, he sat through the funeral and graveside service. Through gallons and gallons of liquid pain, he could not bear the thought of a world with no grandmother. Wise. Funny. Adventurous. A Lover of family and food. He would never quite recover from her death, nor could he share the depth of his pain with others . They simply could not understand the magic between them. Few people would ever know such a grandmother, but Anthony had, and it broke his heart to lose her.

At the reading of Amma’s will, there was the usual distribution of her money, her property, and some of her prized possessions. Anthony did not care. Amma was gone. The lawyer went down the list. His cousin got her diamond ring. His parents got her 1972 VW Bus. His uncle got her woodworking tools. And then the lawyer cleared his throat. The room was still.

“And to my beloved grandson, Anthony, I leave my greatest treasure – my cast iron skillet.”

Anthony’s father burst out laughing, and the family joined in snickers and side glances. Anthony, however, wept. Soon, Amma’s black, crusty, greasy cast iron skillet was placed on his own stove top with care that could have been no greater had she bequeathed to him a Ming Dynasty vase.  As he had done for years,  Amma’s exact movements were imitated. The same ingredients and heat for her Salisbury Steak were duplicated once more, but this time, it was not prepared in his Ph.D. cast iron skillet. It was cooked in hers.

When he sat down to eat, Amma was resurrected. With each bite, he tasted the love she had for him as a boy and the pride she had for him as a man. Amma’s magic lived on in the memories of her cast iron skillet. In the years that followed, Anthony’s guests would rave about his Salisbury Steak, and he would smile, because what they really tasted was the love of this enchantress grandmother.

People would ask for the recipe, which he gladly shared, but he knew that they would be forever disappointed and confused because it didn’t resemble his Salisbury Steak. That was because they were cooking in another skillet, one without a lifetime of Amma’s love.

© 2012

Sallie with her Mother

This will be the first Mother’s Day since my Mom died. She crossed over in November, 2011. I’ve thought a lot about her since her death, trying to wrap it all up with a nice bow to summarize her life, but no one can be summarized neatly, especially my mom. Even after I disclosed my childhood sexual abuse, she supported my pursuit of founding Committed to Freedom – the end result of disclosing our family’s terrible secret and her deep pain. She was a beautiful, complex woman and my heart often hurts when I remember she’s gone.

As I reflect on my Mom, I’ve also reflected a lot on the role of “mother.” I’m one. My daughter is one. I have childless friends who are heroic moms. Many men I know are fantastic moms. One young woman I know (who just turned forty) joyfully mothers three young children by herself. I met a man a few months ago who courageously mothers four young children by himself. One thing’s for sure. The role of “mother” for an abuse survivor carries a weight that is often conflicted, bitter, bitter-sweet, or complicated.

I don’t attempt to characterize your mother for one moment. Some of us had monsters for mothers. Others of us had mothers who were narcissists, spineless, absent, or addicts. A few of us had mothers who were unaware, kind, and naïve. Some of us never knew our mothers or knew them only briefly. Some were raised in group homes where the role of mother was assumed by house parents or foster parents or social services.

Advocate or adversary. Powerhouse or pathetic. Domineering or doormat. You’ll never get over your mother – good, bad, or both. Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés (author of Women Who Run With the Wolves) believes that we’re all searching for a mother, and I share that belief. But to do that, you have to sift through the cultural trappings and society’s gender roles to get to the heart of WHAT you’re searching for and WHO you’ve already found.

I certainly can’t capture WHAT “mother” is for everyone, but for me, I think about Jesus standing over Jerusalem, assuming the role of a nurturing, protective mother when he spoke, “How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings…” (Matthew 23:37, New Testament Bible). I think about the grit and mercy of Mother Theresa (Nobel Peace Prize winner). I think about the humor and wit of Anne Lamott (author of Traveling Mercies, Plan B, and others). I think about the warriors I see in my own children and the kind tenacity and dependability I see in my husband. I think about my friend who is battling cancer right now who first helped me to understand that “soft” wasn’t a bad thing. These are a few of the qualities I think of when I think about “mother.”

Besides my biological mother, I’ve found “mother” in people I’ve never met through their books, music, and art. I’ve found “mother” in people who helped to raise me after I became an adult, including my husband, my children, and my friends. I’ve found “mother” in the beauty of God’s creation, love, peace, and mercy. I’ve even found “mother” in family pets, imaginary friends, and stuffed animals.

I think it’s important for abuse survivors to recognize the different people (as well as art, literature, music, and creatures) who have been contributors to our well-being and development. To do so acknowledges their “mother” roles in your life. It honors all that that word encompasses and helps you to see yourself in terms other than “abandoned” or “orphaned.”

I’d be interested to know about those you’ve found to be “mother” in your journey and how they contributed to your life. Scroll down to the comment section below and share why they enriched your life.

©2012

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.

-e.e. cummings

I recently stayed with a friend during a cross-country journey. Many conversations took place while I was with her, including the story of her father’s military service in Vietnam. In going through slides he’d taken of people and the war-torn countryside, she found one particular slide that had the following caption written on the cardboard frame: “Sometimes I cry.” You can’t get more honest or raw than that.

Trauma and tragedy often leave us unable to find adequate words that fully contain the impact of those life-altering experiences. To the casual observer, it would seem that crying comes easily when abuse survivors reflect on their suffering and exploitation, but that’s not often the case.

I can cry over soft drink commercials (think Coca-Cola’s Mean Joe Green ad). I can cry over a movie scene (I lost it when Forrest Gump said “Sometimes there aren’t enough rocks.”). I can cry over the experiences of other abuse survivors or the stories I read in the newspaper that mirror my own childhood sexual abuse history. But to cry about what happened to me . . . well, I didn’t seem to have that capacity.

Research conducted by Dr. William H. Frey (director of Psychiatry Research Laboratories at St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Center, St. Paul, Minn.) revealed that emotional tears have higher protein content than tears that might be produced due to normal moisturizing, allergies, or irritants. He believes that emotional tears release chemicals that help the body to purge itself of toxins in response to stress. There are other researchers who believe that tears also release endorphins that make us feel more at peace. (click here to read more about this: http://www.nytimes.com/1982/08/31/science/biological-role-of-emotional-tears-emerges-through-recent-studies.html?pagewanted=all )

I have no answers when it comes to the inability to cry for ourselves. It’s not like most of us refuse to cry, but more like we just can’t. My suspicion is that the inner conversation goes something like this . . . “I’m afraid to start crying because I might not ever stop,” or “I could take it, but it breaks my heart to see other people experience the same things,” or “I’ve been numb for so long, I don’t know how to cry.”

The correlation between stored up stress and an abuse survivor’s physical difficulties is well documented. Most of us have dealt with stress in very unhealthy and self-destructive ways. It makes sense that the suppression of tears is one more way that our stress and pain have been dammed up in a toxic reservoir.

I can’t force myself to cry. I can’t force myself to grieve over lost innocence and broken places in my soul.  I can’t force myself to perform emotionally. And yet, when I heard my friend’s story about her father’s war slides, those words he wrote – “Sometimes I Cry”  – made me weep.

I’d be interested in your thoughts about crying. To share your insights, scroll down to leave a comment.

© 2012

Find one wholly unexpected kind thing to do tomorrow and just do it. Notice what happens to your mood.

-Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman
Flourish – A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being (p 21)

When I was a kid, I worried a lot about suffering and felt it was somehow my responsibility to find solutions that would end it. I worried about world hunger, mostly. I’ll never forget that great epiphany I had when I was about eight that the simple solution to starvation was to make edible sponges that  – once ingested – would swell up and make everyone full forever. It was kind of a Communion-Wafer-Gone-Wild concept. Easy peezey (as my grandson would say)! I shared this brilliant solution with my mother who – while admiring my motives – explained that sponges aren’t the same as actual food.

The solutions sometimes offered to victims of sexual abuse are just as simplistic and off-the-mark as my sponge idea was for world hunger. Just get over it! Forgive and forget! Pray harder! Have more faith!

Easy peezey . . . for everyone but you. That’s because the issues and damage are a complex puzzle that makes solving a Rubik’s Cube easy peezey in comparison!

These are the kinds of solutions that can drive you back into silent suffering, because they’re not solutions at all. They’re fluff and filler. They eliminate the most important aspect of abuse recovery: THE PROCESS. And believe me, the process is messy!

The process involved in abuse recovery includes identifying lies that feel like truth, acknowledging the crushing realization that people you trusted exploited, abused, or abandoned you, and taking on the excruciating task of re-parenting yourself into a healthy adult. For every layer – for every issue, experience, dysfunction, and false belief – the process must be thorough, honest, and courageously embarked upon.

Abuse survivors must be careful about who they permit to occupy their mental, emotional, and spiritual space. I don’t question the intentions of people who offer easy peezey solutions. I just assume they have no idea what they’re talking about, but have good hearts and want to help. Of course, some people offer easy peezey because they’re hiding behind their own discomfort or their own issues, but that’s something I don’t have any control over. Unless I know otherwise, they’re good people who don’t know what to do.

I can waste my energy being frustrated with them and defensive about my recovery process. I can exhaust myself trying to convince myself that the easy peezy solutions have done the trick when they haven’t.  But until I embark on the process, I’m not going to get healthier. Neither will you.

For those of us who were taught never to question authority – particularly if it’s spiritual authority – to ignore the easy peezey and insist that the process you’re going through is necessary and complicated can feel quite threatening. You may feel condemned, as if you’re a rebellious trouble-maker, but you’re not. Will people get upset with you if you insist on going to therapy, if you demand useful and honest information, if you ask hard questions and don’t settle for non-answers, or if you establish new boundaries that never existed before? Maybe, maybe not.

That’s not the point. The point is, you are in the process of reclaiming what is yours – your life. You’re a freedom fighter willing to rattle the bars until the jail door is unlocked.  What’s kind of funny is that after you’ve gone through the process and are healthier, people will look at you and marvel at how easy peezey you seemed to sail through. You’ve moved on. You’ve released yourself. You’re spiritually settled, relationally more balanced, comfortable in your own skin, and emotionally healthier.  Easy peezey . . . right? Ha! If they only knew!

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.

- Genesis 1:31
Hebrew Bible