Trust

I found it easier to understand the concept of Trust, by looking at what I had been taught about trust. It was the experiences that I’d had to do with the word and definition of trust that were at the root of my understanding of the concept and meaning of the word trust.

I remember being scared half out of my wits while being yelled at “TRUST ME, I know what YOU need”. (which translated to me that I “needed” the spanking, the strap, the punishment)

I was told to trust teachers and leaders who were bullies and predators simply because they were “my elders”. Being taught to blindly trust only taught me that I was not worth much. Being “told” to trust people who were not trustworthy left me very confused about what trust really was.

I had a boyfriend who accused me of not trusting him when he was driving drunk. I felt shame and guilt even though drunk driving is illegal, I had been “groomed” to believe that questioning someone meant that I didn’t love him or her.   He went to jail for impaired driving.  

I didn’t make the connection that trust has nothing to do with love. 

I had another boyfriend who accused me of not trusting him when I found a girls phone number on his dresser. Once again I felt guilt and shame because as I already mentioned, I had been taught that if I didn’t trust, I didn’t love.  It turned out that he was cheating on me, just as I suspected. I didn’t find out for a long time because I was too busy trying to prove that I “trusted” and “loved him.”  I had several boyfriends who accused me of not trusting them. I don’t know why it never occurred to me to admit even to myself that I didn’t trust them.  There were reasons that I asked the questions I asked; questions such as “where were you all night?” “why did a woman phone for you?” Why didn’t you phone me to say you were going out with the boys?”  

By getting angry and accusing me of accusing HIM of something and trying to “control him” he got me off the actual subject and put me on the defense where in the end I was assuring him that it wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, it was that I just wanted to know where he was but that question never got a real answer. He deflected it by accusing me of not trusting him! And I spent all my time and energy making it up to HIM that I had made him feel like I didn’t trust him!  

This “rabbit trail” that we went down was about how it was MY fault we had problems because **I** didn’t trust. And I was told that if I didn’t trust him then I mustn’t love him. If I didn’t love him then he would leave me to find someone who WOULD love him. And love meant trust so back to square one; I trusted him, he cheated and did what he wanted and I stayed in the fog of dysfunctional relationship feeling guilty for not trusting him and making him feel unloved.   

 I was accused of not trusting and totally guilt tripped and reprimanded by those people only to find out that they were actually NOT trustworthy, just as I suspected.

I was told to trust abusive manipulative people while they were hurting me, all the while “soothing me” in quiet “loving” hushed tones with “trust me, I won’t hurt you”.  “Trust me” I am doing this because “I love you”.  My definitions and understanding of the words “trust” and “love” grew from these false statements from others. Seeing where they were rooted and the lies that grounded them was huge for me. I was told by other adults that I was wrong to be afraid of these “trustworthy” people who were hurting me. When stuff like this happens, it is no wonder why our definitions and understanding of words like trust get confused.

Having the false definition of the word trust in my belief system made it easy for manipulative people to get away with many things without question.  I was caught in the spin of feeling guilty for NOT trusting them without a “real reason”.  The spotlight was always turned back on me and I found myself drilling myself with accusations like “what is wrong with you Darlene, why can’t you trust him or her?” I had learned and in fact been taught to ignore my intuition until it was way too late.

The spin around this whole false belief system was huge!

In that false normal system, trust meant that I had to let someone hurt me and pretended it didn’t hurt me. Trust meant that I didn’t tell on the person hurting me because if I told I would damage the trust and especially the chance of “love” in our relationship. Physical, emotional, spiritual or sexual hurt, it didn’t matter. Trust meant that they were right and I had no rights.

Should trust, must trust… WHY? What does that MEAN? When there is a history of damage around the word trust, that damage has to be faced and the “action” of trust needs to be examined for what it really is.  By understanding how my belief system falsely formed about the word trust I was able to heal from the damage caused by living under the control of that false definition.

Trust is earned over time by each person and in each individual relationship. Trust takes time to grow and being uncertain about to trust or not to trust is not an indication of suspicion or accusation.

 And the action of trust needs to be examined for what it really IS NOT.

Trust is not a right. Trust is not love. Trust is not letting someone devalue you to prove love or loyalty. Trust does not hurt. Trust is not mandatory!

In the dysfunctional system that I grew up in, trust meant that I didn’t count. Trust meant that I protected the very person who was mistreating me. Trusting him meant that I “loved him” or so I misunderstood because that was what I had been taught and how I had been groomed. 

I was taught that I had no right NOT to trust. That version of trust was another false teaching that I had been taught that in the end meant that I was not worthy. I was always wrong. I was always the problem and I was responsible for the success and or failure of ALL relationships. 

See how mixed up “trust” was in my belief system? Can you see why I had to come to understand how I had been taught the wrong definition of trust?

In my case, having so many mixed up and false understandings of so many words and concepts I had no choice but to disconnect and dissociate more and more. I withdrew into the “fog” and dissociated from life in order to cope, in order to survive and in order to carry the burden of all these dysfunctional and often toxic relationships.

What are the trust messages that you have received?

Please feel free to share your thoughts. Please remember that you are welcome to use any name that you wish when you comment. Your identity is safe here; only the name you use will be seen by the public.

Facing the truth on the road to freedom;

Darlene Ouimet

see links in colour and bold print for related posts  Emotional Healing and Busting through Brainwashing

More Related Posts ~  

Darlene and Rocket

When I was a kid my parents got us a puppy! Although I only have one memory of playing with the German Sheppard puppy that one memory is a happy one. 

I have very strong memories however of how much my mother hated having the puppy. Long after the puppy was taken away, I heard her complaints about it.

The reason that they puppy had to go was not because my mother hated it though.  The reason that the puppy had to go was because both my oldest brother and I were allergic to it. 

My mother had an uncle who was a dairy farmer in Quebec. I have a few memories of visiting the farm, of the cows, the milking barn, the orchards my great Aunt and Uncle and their two hired men.  I remember the smell of the big kitchen, the fresh baked pies and the fresh garden food that we ate every time we visited. 

My father LOVED the farm.  He has spent summers there as a teenager.  My mother hated the farm and didn’t make much of an effort to try to hide it. I think she went there out of family obligation and also because my father loved it there so much. 

After I got so sick in grade 5 and developed asthma as a result of being so badly emotionally abused by my teacher, the pediatrician told my mother that I was too weak to visit the farm anymore because of my asthma and allergies.  I was 10 or 11 when this news was delivered.  I remember feeling really badly because my father (and my brothers) would have to miss out on the visits to the farm all because of me.  I don’t think my parents would dare go against the Dr.s orders when the same doctor had threatened them with a court order if they didn’t get me out of the teachers class. 

We moved to another Province the following year and my parents split up, so going to the farm or not, never came up again.

When I was all grown up and moved away from home I ended up marrying a farmer myself, this time on the other side of the country from where I grew up. I married a beef cattle rancher; we had lots of cows, I brought my horse with me when I moved in and pretty soon we added a dog to the growing list of live animals.  My husband also puts up a lot of hay and grain, something else that I had always been allergic to on my Uncles farm. 

My mother didn’t try to hide her disappointment that I married a farmer. She even made a bet that my marriage wouldn’t last 5 years. (Another way she defined me, but that is another story) It started to come out how much my mom hated “the farm”; our farm, my home.  I started to remember how much she hated her Uncles’ farm… and one day she told me that her Uncle got in bed with her when she was a kid and tried to press his erect penis through her legs from behind. (So now I knew why she hated “the farm” so much.)

But here is what I am getting at; One day when I had been married a few years and at least 2 of my children were born, my controlling mother made a comment about how she had made all these “sacrifices” for her children and what a “slap in the face” it was that my older brother had 2 German Sheppard’s in his house, and I lived on a cattle and hay farm and had a horse and a dog. I gapped.  She added that she “had to give up HER dog because of us” and that “she had to stop going to her Uncles farm” because of me.   

I reacted like I always reacted ~ with a whole bunch of explanations about how I had to wear a mask when I groomed my horse, and how I had to wear gloves when I rode. I defended myself with the fact that our dog (a scotch collie) had a double down coat that was the least allergic for me, and how my allergies were MUCH better now than they were when I was a kid… and on and on.  I was so used to having to justify every decision that I ever made that went against anything my mother wanted or didn’t want. The truth is that it was NONE of my mother’s business where I lived or what I did anymore and I could have just told her that instead of defending myself out of guilt and shame every time she brought it up.  The truth is that she only mentioned it because she saw a way to get a dig in against me. And as always she hit her mark.

Today I realize that this is a great example of how manipulative people will use whatever information they have to point a finger and “prove” that the problem is you and always HAS been you; YOU caused the problem and of course YOU OWE them for all they have done for you. This is “the message” that causes so much damage.

My mother sacrificed for me?? I guess she didn’t think I would remember how much she hated that German Sheppard puppy dog and how much she hated going to her uncle’s farm.  The situation had worked in her favor, but she used it against me anyway; she used it to prove how hard life had been for her and that I was failing (as usual) to make it any easier. 

This was one of the things my self-centered somewhat narcissistic mother said that was so telling and so revealing about the lengths she would go to blame me.  This was not the only incident of its kind.  When I started to come out of “the fog” I realized just how pathetic it was that my toxic mother pulled this particular card; SHE hated that dog and she hated her Uncles farm! She should have been thrilled that I was allergic to both! I also realized how pathetic it is that abusers and controllers (owners) will always push to see just how far they can go to get you back in line with what they want you to “do” and how they want you to feel.

Among others things in the dysfunctional relationship with my mother, I learned that LOVE does keep a tally. I learned that (in spite of all the sayings about love) the love that I was taught has to do with a life time of gratitude and obligation.  I learned that according to her I always make the wrong choice and never do what is best for me and that only she knows what is best for me. She knew so much better than me that she insinuated I married the wrong guy (a slap in HER face?) because his profession involved things that I was allergic to! Those messages are not anything even remotely related to love. Those statements come from dysfunctional family belief systems. They show examples of dysfunctional mother daughter relationship. They reveal how my toxic and manipulative mother regarded and defined me as stupid, unable to take care of myself and disrespectful to her wishes and her “sacrifice”. They are related to manipulation and control over another person; me. And the highlight the sneaky ways that psychological abuse work.

I am extremely grateful that I learned that the LOVE I was taught, is not love at all. The false definition of Love had to be replaced with the truth.

P.S. Interesting that although I do have that one happy memory of having the puppy, for some strange reason I am very afraid of German Sheppard dogs to this day.

Please share your thoughts on these kinds of controlling messages from controlling manipulative people.  

Exposing Truth, one snapshot at a time;

Darlene Ouimet

Related Posts: To heal from the damage, Know what the damage was

More on Mother Daughter Dysfunctional Relationship

 To Shrink? Or Not To Shrink… by Kylie Devi

 I have been raped, repeatedly. I have lived to tell my story. I healed by creating my own support systems, and not so much from psychology or therapy. I am sure there are many loving people with good intentions in the field, but the “system” is not set up for healing. The “get better” industry doesn’t thrive on people “getting better.” So for me, I realized I was going to have to take it into my own hands. I did whatever it took. And it took a lot. Writing, crying, sharing my story, connecting with anger, releasing guilt and shame. Forming bonds with people who deserved my trust. Simple things that seemed complicated at the time. That is what allowed my healing to occur.

 I made FOUR solid attempts at rape and crisis counseling. These experiences are comical to me now, but at the time they were re-traumatizing, life shattering, and felt like a second rape. I was addicted to drugs, destroying my relationships, and hanging on to my will to live by a piece of dental floss. I knew that childhood sexual abuse and rape in my teenage years was the root of why I was creating my life in such a way. I reached out for help where I could. Free county rape counseling, student rape crisis centers, expensive psychotherapy. Every time it was so hard to find the courage to ask for help when the previous counselor had either failed to create space for my experience to be real, thickening the denial I already had to deal with within myself, or practiced questionable therapeutic techniques. 

 I recount some of these experiences in a book I am currently writing called Love After Rape. The following three paragraphs are excerpts from this book:

 I wanted to talk to her. I really did. She was a counselor I went to see. I had twelve weeks with her. Twelve weeks to make her understand – to know where all the pain was coming from and how to heal it. By week six she said: “I have to fill out forms to track our progress together, in six weeks with you I have only gotten as far as where we should have been half way through the first session.” Paperwork. Everything was about paperwork, and progress, and moving forward, and being orderly. I could not feel. I just wanted to say “I can’t feel. Can you help me?” But I could not allow the broken notes to escape my locked throat, I wanted to say so badly. Every week I thought about that one hour and I knew that would be the week I could say it. The unspeakable, unsayable, unknowable, shameful thing. I could not, I was not willing, the words were not there. The words were scrambled, the memories. The twelfth week never came. One day she looked at me and said: “I wish I could help you.”

 I did try again, a few years later. I wanted someone to understand. I went to the free state or county funded therapy on the bus. Once again, I had twelve weeks. If I was really effed up, they would reapply at the end of my twelve weeks and see if I could qualify for more. I rode the bus for an hour each way, watching the town sink into itself, watching the filth and the gray of the city I will never call home buzz by. Watching the gray after gray finally turn into brick red and then it was my time to get off. The whole time my stomach was in knots. Could I say it, could I say? What would I say. My clever mind would plan the whole way. Plan it’s defense against the truth being seen, all the while wanting desperately for the truth to be seen. She was short, and had a face that reminded me of a bulldog. It looked out at me with a kind of meanness. A bulldog therapist with brown hair. She kept on telling me that I had anger, I have anger, I must have anger. I don’t have any anger, I have made my peace in the world, have found peace. Peace through marijuana and promiscuous sex. She sent me to Barnes and Noble to buy a book about shame. Healing the Shame that Binds You, by John Bradshaw. I was desperate. Bulldog or not, I needed her. I read it, cover to cover. I was proud of myself for doing so. The next time I got off the bus at the red brick building, and walked up the long flight of stairs, down the hallway that smelled like an attic and too many years of unfiled paperwork, yes, that time. She was not there. Something had happened to her. Instead, a chipper blonde bird lady was there. She said “I cannot tell you what happened to Mary, I cannot.” I hadn’t asked. She went on to say a whole lot of other things. She talked and talked. She did not ask me about the Bradshaw book I had in my hand. We made another appointment, even though not much had happened in this one. I went back the next week, on the bus, through the gray, up the stairs, same as before. She was ranting and ranting. Her son was too young to have a baby. His girlfriend had never even held one before. Did I see the Jodie Foster movie with the rape scene. Did I know how many times she said no in that movie? Did I wonder if I would be raped again? It could happen again. It could keep happening, again and again. This was therapy? She looked at me wide-eyed, at the edge of her seat, and talked, and talked and talked. I am glad someone was getting help.

 I tried one more time, years later. At college. My relationship was falling apart. My drug addiction was literally killing me. I went to the place on campus where they specialize in dealing with rape and sexual assault. I was tired of talking. I wrote a letter to the therapist. I told her everything. That I had been raped as a child, as an adult, that I was killing myself with drugs, that I couldn’t have sex with my fiancée without blacking out. I told her everything. She rustled through the papers quickly, clinically. She said, “You know, we can talk about the assault you experienced in high school. As far as childhood goes, I really don’t want to put ideas into your head.” Ideas into my head? I just told her what happened. It took so much, so much courage to share that. I could not even speak it. There were no ideas put into my head. There were penises put into my mouth. That was all I was trying to say. Even those who are meant to serve this population of me, of me’s, of the women and men who endured what I had, couldn’t speak. Even those specially trained and educated. They did not want to know. They did not want to hear about it. Why were they there? What were they doing there? I never saw her again. Later I learned about an “epidemic” of women accusing families of origin of sexual abuse that supposedly had never happened and it ruined those families. Therapists all over the country were suddenly afraid to touch it. Like it was rotting meat, stay away, don’t touch it, its raw. You could get an infection, a disease. Don’t ruin the families, protect those who abuse, protect their rights, they have them too. File your paperwork. Go home. Enjoy your house, your television. Collect your paycheck. Allow those you serve to suffer in silence, continue this for years. One day, before you die, in the last moment of your life, you will think to yourself. Maybe they were telling the truth. Maybe they had been raped by their fathers, their mothers, their brothers, their uncles. When they confronted their families, it tore their families apart. We were afraid to tear a family apart. Telling the truth is not what tore those families apart, and if it were not true, it would not have torn anyone apart. I will tell you what tore them apart. Sleep well. Enjoy your life.   

You know, I am no longer a drug addict. I no longer consider suicide, I value my life. I may have been victimized, but today, I am not a victim. I am thriving and living on purpose. The “get better” industry is not to credit for that. Not one bit. I healed myself, with the help of others who shared their struggles and their solutions. In the end, we are our own solutions. We all have everything we need inside of us, and within the communities we create, to live the life we are meant to.

Kylie Devi

**As always, please feel free to contribute to this article with your own stories, feedback or comments.  ~ Darlene Ouimet ~ founder of Emerging from Broken

Kylie Devi is a writer and healing artist working with men and women who have survived sexual trauma. She offers an eight week course “Recovering the Spirit from Sexual Trauma” in Gainesville, FL, and is writing two recovery oriented books. Her passions are poetry, qigong, bodywork, and transformative communication. She can be contacted through her blog at www.kyliedevi.com

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Emotional Healing does not depend on…………

where I will be this week

We live in a society that teaches “don’t get raped” instead of “don’t rape”.  And we wonder why we are so filled with guilt and shame when we get raped. We mistakenly believe that we somehow didn’t prevent ourselves from getting raped.

And some of us even question what others “did” to get raped because we are so conditioned to think in terms of “don’t get raped, instead of “don’t rape” ~  as though the weight of the crime should be shared between the victim and the perpetrator or even worse that the weight of the crime rests mostly on the victim.  

And the weight of the crime should not be shared. There is no excuse for rape.

When we are treated unfairly or unjustly we try our hardest to understand why someone would treat us that way and when we have been told that we get what we deserve or that everything that happens to us is our own fault, we look for what we did to cause it. If this brainwashing is done well, then when we are beaten black and blue, we believe that we did do something to deserve it. We will even look for what we did to deserve it. And when we have been conditioned to try SO HARD to be perfect, the things that we think we do so wrong make little sense to the rest of the world; Left the toothpaste cap off the toothpaste? Left the toilet seat up? Forgot to put a coffee cup in the dishwasher? Phoned 5 minutes late? Didn’t realize he was in a bad mood?

Growing up this way becomes our normal. But it is a false normal. We become desensitized to the truth. We become accepting of mal treatment and disrespect. We have no idea that we deserve better. How would we have learned that?

We live in a society that teaches “it’s your own fault” and we wonder why we take the blame for everything and believe it is our responsibility to fix it.

We live in a society that teaches “don’t retaliate”. And when “don’t retaliate” is taught, “don’t fight back” is what is learned. When we teach “don’t fight back, we also teach “don’t stand up for yourself”.

What is taught is what is learned.  

We live in a society that teaches “trust” someone until it is proven that you can’t trust them. But then we are also taught the conflicting lesson that it is our own fault if we get taken advantage of.  We are told that we should have known better or that we placed ourselves in danger, therefore either we deserved what happened or we brought it on ourselves.

We are taught that relationships work in a way that they don’t work. We learn things that we never should have learned; in ways we never should have learned them.  False things that we think are true.

Emerging from Broken is about unlearning those things.  It is about separating the real truths from the false truths. It is about sorting out those mixed messages and conflicting teachings and embracing the real truth so that we can live in freedom and wholeness; thriving instead of just surviving. It is about flourishing with our faces held up to the sun. 

Please share your thoughts and feelings and feel free to use any name you wish to use in the comment form. Your privacy is important to me.

A mini snapshot of truth on the journey to wholeness

Darlene Ouimet

If you would like to have a peek at where I am going to be this next 10 days, check out the webcam at the resort I am visiting.

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It dawned on me a while back that this statement implies that if I am unhappy, then I am deciding to be unhappy. When I was unhappy and depressed, I tried everything I ever heard about to get myself over it. I tried to “decide to be happy”.  Oh I had brief success with it, yes, but not the enduring happiness that I sought after for so long. I got a little relief but never a permanent result. I tried self help; I tried books, affirmations and seminars.  I took vitamins, changed my diet and exercise, bought new clothes and said “I love you” to myself in the mirror and did other affirmations.  I quit coffee, quit drinking alcohol and quit smoking and I improved my lifestyle.  I WANTED to be happy. I wanted to believe that life was worth living. It just didn’t seem to be that easy! If happiness is merely a decision… then no one ever told me how to make that decision.

I did a Google search for the phrase “happiness is a decision” and I came up with lots of articles about how we can just “decide to be happy”.  None of it was very helpful at all but I think that when we don’t have any solution we are willing to accept half a solution or anything that sounds like a solution.  Be mindful about where that acceptance might lead you though.

Other than for brief moments, such as when I got a new car, new haircut, new boyfriend, took a vacation, or read a fantastic inspiring self help book or attended an equally uplifting seminar, lasting happiness escaped me. I wanted MORE than a Band-Aid. I wanted the real deal.

But I believed that happiness was a decision that I could make. I believed that happiness was a choice. I even told other unhappy people that happiness is a decision and a choice.  And deep down I felt like a failure because I couldn’t MAKE that decision.  Because I believed that happiness is a decision, I also believed that I CHOSE not to make that decision.  And there is the guilt. That was the underlying disapproval of myself. That was where the little voice inside got to say, “you have a choice, you can be happy, but you don’t want to be or you would decide to be”

Those statements got to me, but I never realized it. I never looked at it the way that I do now. I didn’t know that happiness was NOT a decision. Not in my life it wasn’t. Not for me. I think those sayings are really meant for different circumstances.

My teenage children have had some unhappy times in their lives. I am SO glad that I didn’t tell them that happiness is a decision.  Looking at it through the grid of teaching that concept to children brings to mind so many ways that I was discounted and verbally discouraged.  There is a subconscious element to this whole thing.  If you tell an emotionally struggling person that happiness is a choice, the deeper reaction to that statement IS guilt and self blame.  I “heard” that the choice was in my own hands when in reality it wasn’t until I went through the process of facing the truth about why I was unhappy.

I found real and lasting happiness when I faced the things that had caused me to be so unhappy in the first place. And now I really can choose my attitude.  I found that being grateful, being able to sustain an attitude of gratitude came much easier after I faced the past and was allowed to have my resentments for the things that stole my happiness. When I gave myself permission to feel the anger and NOT judge myself for it, I didn’t have to fight it anymore.  When I put the guilt,shame and blame back where it belonged and to who it belonged to, I was able to let go of guilt, shame and self blame. When I validated my right to be angry, hurt and resentful over the things that happened to me in the past, finally I was able to rise above the past.  The anger, hurt and resentment were no longer a problem.

The biggest difference between today and back then is that I don’t have those dark days anymore now that I have faced my past and faced the pain. By owning my truth I have taken my life back. Emerging from broken is about HOW I did that.

Today I can decide to be happy but that was never possible with I lived with the black cloud of the past and all the lies that belonged to it. It was in facing the past that I let it go, found peace and regained my ability to choose.  Happiness can be a decision now but I rarely think about it, because I am so rarely UN-Happy.

Please share your thoughts and comments here

Exposing Truth, one snapshot at a time;

Darlene Ouimet

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a childs mind

The belief system that I am constantly speaking of does not form all at once or form completely from one event. This is where it gets complicated. Other events factor into it, some of them normal healthy childhood events that may have familiar feelings attached to them, and it is really easy to lump them all together.

When a child is devalued, abused, or discounted, it is a matter of necessity, (survival) to build an understanding or comprehension, and that comprehension becomes like a filter that we look through. Child sexual abuse, being put down, called a liar, made fun of and ignored, and being physically harmed all became part of my history and the way that I processed that history became part of this “grid or filter” that I viewed all events through.

Being ignored on the playground at school brought up familiar feelings of rejection.  My mind searched through my history for a reason that I had been rejected, and quickly related it to the feelings surrounding a trauma event. (Continued….) Imagine sneaking a cookie from the cookie jar and getting caught. Maybe a stern reprimand was issued. Maybe you felt ashamed and the shame felt like the other shame from the trauma event. They felt similar. The shame and guilt was familiar and this time they actually applied. Angry labels like “sneak”: and “thief” were applied and accepted and we hung our heads. If we denied taking the cookie in the first place the label liar was also added and it was easy to take that “regular childhood cookie sneaking event” and add it to the “proof” that the guilt and shame from actual trauma events was also deserved. 

I have a really significant memory of a time when I got “caught” doing something naughty and shameful.  I still remember the feelings of shame that I felt that day. I was not often allowed to have a friend over, and on this day my best friend was not only allowed to play at my house, INSIDE the house, but we were going to bake cupcakes. This was a very special day. My friend brought her easy bake oven with her and we were happily baking cupcakes. We decided to make cupcakes in the big oven and I felt all grown up putting the icing on them when they had cooled down.  We each got one, and there were cupcakes for my brothers too.  I do not know why I did this, but I took a bite out of my brother’s cup cake and tried to cover the missing bite with extra icing. I got caught. My mother was very angry with me, and my friend got sent home. I got a spanking and sent to my room. I had ruined our special day and everything had been going so well. I felt the guilt and shame of that day for years and years. It is one of my clearest childhood memories and in later years I often wondered about the significance of that day and why it has stuck with me for so long, as if it was the most horrible thing that I could have ever done, so I could not put behind me.

Today I believe that the significance of the cupcake day was that that was the day that I accepted all the guilt, shame and blame for most if not all of the trauma events that had ever happened to me, and would ever happen to me. It was just a little trigger day. I was deeply ashamed, (which I understand) but I linked it to the other events that were abusive to me. I connected it to the feelings of shame and guilt that I had about being neglected and traumatized, giving equal weight and putting them on a parallel scale with this time that I really did do something wrong, not realizing that there was a difference between the guilt and shame that belonged to me, and the guilt and shame that didn’t belong to me.

The “bad feelings” felt so similar that I added them to the grid or filter that I’d developed to measure and analyse things through and came up with the wrong conclusions; that the trauma events of being sexually abused were as equally shameful and guilt filled as the day that I took that bite out of my brother’s cupcake and tried to hide it.

Other fairly normal innocent childhood “mistakes” got added to that increasingly confusing recipe and they all blended together to form my false belief system. A false belief system that I never considered was false, but thought all along was the truth about me.

How does this post strike you? Does it make sense that a false belief system can form this way? Do you see how a childhood “mistake” could be the proof that we use to take the blame and shame for things that really are not our faults? Please feel free to share.

Another Snapshot on the Journey to Wholeness

Darlene Ouimet

Related Posts ~ How One Truama Led to Several False Beleifs         

The little Girl who Cried Wolf ~ Belief System Development

In this post I have purposely not defined exactly what kind of abuse I am talking about. Really they all cause similar damage. It is my hope that the reader will define “it” for themselves as it has impacted their own life.

I was convinced that if I kept “it” a secret that no one would know and it would go away.

Then I thought that if I could just figure out what I had done wrong to bring on such a thing, or if I could figure out what I had done to deserve it, I could stop doing whatever behavior that it was, so this terrible thing wouldn’t happen to me again. But because I could not figure out what “it” was, I was never sure that I had stopped doing it and I lived in constant fear.  

Then I was convinced that if I told someone, then someone else would know and it would go away.

Then I thought that if I dug deep into all the details, admitted everything that happened, even what I did or agreed to in order to protect myself, even what I thought was my fault, even my own guilt and shame, that it would go away. But it didn’t.

I thought if I “put it behind me” that I would be free. But I wasn’t free and I didn’t know HOW to put it behind me. Everyone told me to “let it go” but no one told me how. They said “just give it to God” and I said how? They said “have faith” and I said HOW? I tried and I tried harder and harder and they said “just believe” and I said okay… because I was exhausted.

I thought that if I acted as if I was happy, joyous and free, that eventually I would be. It didn’t work.

I tried travel. I tried bright lights and exotic locations. That wasn’t the answer.

I prayed for years, at first just praying to die, and then praying for the answer, the truth, for freedom from the struggle. I tried religion, spirituality, meditation, relaxation, and bible study, and although each worked for a time, I often felt rebellious, unworthy, and even more aware of my shortcomings. Sometimes I felt too ashamed to go to God. Sometimes I felt that He had abandoned me too. I was ashamed that I thought that. Then there was more confusion, more guilt and shame, more self loathing and self blame.  

I tried men, and then marriage and children.  The fear of failure made it worse. How could I raise healthy children if I was so messed up and couldn’t seem to break the lifelong cycle of depression, guilt, shame, self blame and low self esteem?

Then I thought that if I threw myself into making everyone else happy that I would be fulfilled. That didn’t work either.

More guilt and shame; more feelings of failure and worthlessness. More depression.

I tried vitamins, whole foods and physical fitness but my spirit never caught up with me.

It was when I looked at the details of my life through new eyes that I began to see things differently.

It was when I looked at the details of the events AND the details after the events that became the key. It was the looking at the whole picture. The first thing that I realized was that the guilt and shame were not mine to carry. Even though I only realized this about ONE event at first, it was a beginning.

I began to heal when I realized that I believed a lot of lies about myself and when I understood how I came to believe them I was able to change the beliefs that I had about myself, and the abuse. I was able to change the belief that it was my fault. I saw that it wasn’t something that I had done so I didn’t have to keep looking for something to stop doing. I was able to see how people, more powerful and influential then I was, used actions, looks and sometimes words to manipulate me into believing I deserved what they did and then believing that I was unworthy of better. I was able to see how they misused their power.

As I began to look at the whole picture, I began to get a different picture. As I continued with this work I emerged from the broken life I was living as a broken and discouraged woman, into a life of fullness and wholeness. I felt peace and love flow into me, replacing the guilt and shame. I came to understand my worth, my value and my ability to love. I began to appreciate myself and recognize my gifts. My self esteem grew, my depressions became less frequent and eventually disappeared and the fragmented person that I used to be, emerged into one whole healthy wonderful person.

I pursued the truth and I found it and it set me free.

Please share your thoughts and comments.

Darlene Ouimet

I remember the day that realized that I was no longer attached to my former identity. My former identity is the identity that was given to me by my family and almost every significant relationship I ever had since a very young age with the exception of a few special girlfriends and maybe a couple of adults along the way. It was how I had come to think of myself, how much guilt and shame that I carried for things that had happened to me and the way that I believed I was not loveable, that I was not good enough and that something about me was just “wrong”. That identity no longer resonated with me. I knew that I was no longer who they said I was. My identity crisis was over, I thought. I was certain that the little voice in my head would go away now. That little voice that whispered every time I accomplished anything; “who the hell do you think YOU are?? Everyone knows you are nothing, everyone knows that you are an imposter and anyone who doesn’t will soon find out”. I was certain that voice would shut up now and that I would never have an imposter issue again! (Unfortunately this was not the end of that issue, but let’s save that for another blog post later on)

 I remember that the exact moment I realized that I was no longer who they said I was; that I was no longer defined by them. I felt euphoric and immediately empty. I felt like I had reached a goal, but something was missing. I felt amazing and terrified. I felt free and blank all at the same time.  Full of real fear I questioned my therapist; “well if none of that is who I am, then who am I?” It felt scary, dangerous, foreign, lonely and somehow clean, all at the same time.

Prior to this day, in my mind’s eye regarding the process of recovery from all my depressions and dissociative identity etc, I had visions of huge construction equipment digging up buildings, rotten foundations and roots that were miles deep. At first clearing this wreckage ~ what my life had become ~ seemed overwhelming. I didn’t think I could do it, there was so much debris to deal with and the mess went so deep. Sometimes I even pictured huge floodlights so the work could also be done in the dark, as though there was no rest from it. It seemed to go on and on, the things I found in the digging were sometimes shocking, sometimes frightening, and sometimes so enlightening it was like finding diamonds! Most of the time the shocking and frightening stuff eventually was so enlightening that it was like finding treasure too. I found the truth! It was exhausting but somehow I kept going.

Now, on this new day in my mind’s eye I pictured a huge area of land that has been cleared of all trees, structures, garbage, weeds and rubble The land was all smoothed and prepared and the huge construction equipment had been taken away. This new foundation was ready and waiting for me to rebuild on it. I felt shaky at first, as though like a baby, my legs were still wobbly. I was curious about who I would find on this new leg of the journey to discover the real me.  Would I recognize myself, and even more frightening, would I like myself? There was still that little voice inside, asking “what if they were right about me”? What if the people that had defined me all my life were right about me after all”? What if I can’t do me? What if no one likes the real me? What am I going to find out next?

Feeling blank has many fears.

The following months were in many ways no less complicated than the prior months in therapy, they were just different. I had to learn how to live in my new belief system, and sometimes it was uncomfortable.  I tried new things, and almost everything I did felt like I was doing it for the first time, because I had changed all those old beliefs and I was not the same person anymore. Sometimes I wanted to run back to the old life! At least it was familiar and even comfortable there. At least I knew how to function there.

 As I got to know myself, my happiness increased. I felt free, alive, brilliant, strong, dynamic and reborn. I began to feel comfortable; like I was really alright, and in fact I was “right with myself”. I felt like I finally knew what it means to feel like I was who I was meant to be. I was able to impact others in ways that I never did before. I started to feel purposeful and fulfilled. Today I continue to become more and more comfortable in my own skin, more alive, more able to live life fully and to flourish and thrive. I become more “ME” with each passing day and I love who I am!  

Please share your own stories, feelings, fears and victories as we travel this road and celebrate our discoveries.

Darlene Ouimet

click here to read the post on my struggle with my identity

The post “Psychological, Physical and Sexual Abuse Why Questions” generated a lot of interest, so I decided to do a follow up post asking the questions that controlling and abusive people ask us.  The response on the Emerging from Broken facebook page was huge.

These types of statements that controllers and abusers use are designed to keep us in a fog of confusion. Remember that this type of grooming begins when we are very young and becomes part of our definition of love. We are taught “if you love me you would not fight, argue or even disagree with me”. We may also be taught that compliance is respect and respect is a demand not a choice. The problem is that so often we end up respecting abusive behaviour and we are not sure what abusive behaviour is because it starts when we are so young.

The following ‘why questions’ abusers ask can be used to control and to cover up any type of abuse. They are used to guilt and shame us into looking back at ourselves and to question ourselves, instead of them. They are used to keep the victim in a spin ~ trying to figure out the truth and never quite putting a finger on exactly what the truth is. These questions are used to control. These types of questions are abusive. They don’t make sense but we so often don’t realize that because we have been groomed to accept these false definitions of love and respect since we were very young.

Here are some of the comments that came in on EFB Facebook, about typical questions and statements that are used to control, guilt and shame, force compliance, or cause to shut down.

~ “why don’t you just get on with your life and get over that? Why do you insist on destroying our family? Why can’t you let me forget that happened?

~ “Why don’t you spend time with me anymore? Why do you look so serious all the time?”

~ “Why can’t you forgive and forget?  And I am told I SHOULD love them.”

~”After all I’ve done for you why are you treating me this way? Why can’t YOU just move on?”

~ Why don’t you like me? Don’t you remember all the fun we had when you were a kid? (along with an answer ~ “no, I don’t remember all the fun and even if there was some fun does that make up for all the other abuse?.. NO”)

~”Why don’t you respect him? He was a good provider. (Is that what a father is?) You are going to have to live with the way YOU are treating your Dad.”

~ “If you loved me you would… or If you loved me you would not….”

~”You SHOULD be grateful”

~” Why can’t you think of somebody other than yourself for a change?”

~ “Why can’t you grow up and start acting like your Mothers daughter?”

~ “You MAKE me do this to you. If you would do things right the first time I wouldn’t have to….”

~ “Why can’t you see this from my point of view?”

~ “Stop acting like a spoilt brat”

~ “What is WRONG with you?”

~ “Why do you keep talking about this? Why do you blame me; your father did it. What the hell are you thinking, writing a book about it? Why are you so selfish? Do you think you are the only one that matters? What about ME?”

These questions are full of the twisted communications and insinuations hurled at people for the purpose of control. Love is not disempowering and it does not support lies. This system is very backwards and extremely devaluing. Most of these questions are what controlling PARENTS said to their own adult children. We are called selfish, because we want to expose the abuse? Because we want our lives back? We are reprimanded for wanting to have a voice, for wanting to have a chance, for telling the truth? It is more important for them to keep up appearances and to protect the abuser or the secret than it is to validate a child or adult child? Therefore we are the ones with the problem because we want to be heard? In this system there is no hope. When we do as they ask everyone stays sick. And the most difficult part to comprehend is that they would rather us comply, cover up and obey, then become the flourishing healthy adults that we were born to be. We are told we SHOULD love them but we are not taught love by them. Love has not been modeled for us. They do not love by their own definition of love;  the same definition of love that we are expected to love them by.

When I went back into my past to examine the events that originally caused my depressions and dissociative identity disorder, it became apparent that there were a lot of lies involved. There was justification by the abusers, there was blame towards me, when I was an innocent victim, there was covering up, ignoring, and “that didn’t happen” and “shush let’s just forget all about it”. This is where the mental illness accelerated for me ~ with the twisting of the truth; the not being protected and the misplaced blame. The illness accelerated because one lie breeds another lie. And when this type of control works, the controllers keep upping the ante. They want more control, more compliance.

 We grow up and we are often attracted to controllers and abusers…  it’s familiar; it’s what we know. By the time I was in my late thirties the confusion and the fog was so thick that I couldn’t see the truth at all anymore; I easily bought the lies, I conformed to the requests, I complied and I tried harder. My mental health grew increasingly worse. I had no idea what love was. This is how my belief system got so messed up.  And it was in sorting it out; realizing the false from the truth that I recovered.

Please feel free to contribute any of your own stories or the questions used on you.

Busting through the fog,

Darlene Ouimet