I would be stuck
Sitting at my desk
With a piece of paper
Unable to write
Not knowing what to say
Or how to say it.
I felt like a painter
Sitting at an easel
Not knowing what to paint
Not knowing how to make
That first brush stroke.
*
I knew I had a writer’s block
I just didn’t know what
To do about it.
I finally managed to gut it out
And began to write
I wanted to write a book
So I hid out in a library
Way at the back
So no one could find me
Or ask me
What I was doing
It seemed pretty weird
At the time.
I just didn’t know why
I needed to do it that way.
Finally, I finished a book.
Then it was time
To send it to publishers
That felt more scary
Than writing had been
I still didn’t know why,
But I managed to gut it out
And sent my book
Off to publishing companies
*
Then I had that most amazing
Phone call.
A publisher called me back.
“I loved your book. I spent
the entire weekend reading it.
I couldn’t put it down.”
You’d think
That was really exciting news
For a writer.
Instead – I was terrified.
Crippled with fear.
It seemed pretty weird
At the time
I just didn’t know why that was.
*
Then a second publisher was interested
I tried to gut it out
And keep moving forward.
I couldn’t do it.
I told myself
“I’ve just lost touch
with the project.
I need time to reflect.”
I walked away from the book
And the publishers.
*
I got so frustrated,
That at one point
I wrote a poem about it.
*
“The desire to express,
I was taught to repress
Has caused me a block
I wish to unlock.
*
I pick up the pen,
I start writing again,
I feel the flow,
And then I stop.”
*
I went on my way
For a number of years,
Then felt led to write a second book.
It was to be a novel,
About a part of
My Dad’s healing journey.
Writing that book led
To a grand adventure
That included
Working on wheat harvest
To explore my Dad’s path.
I came home
I managed to gut it out,
And wrote that novel.
Again,
Publishers were interested
And I felt déjà vu
As the whole thing happened again.
I walked away from that book,
Saying
“I’ve lost touch with the project,
I need time to reflect.”
*
By this point I was so frustrated
I decided
If I couldn’t get past this whole
Writer’s block,
I would just take up golf.
And at one point,
I did just that.
I bought some golf clubs
Determined to leave writing behind
Forever.
*
But the desire to write
Was just that strong
I had to keep going.
It led to a most unexpected place.
Back to my grandmother’s house
When I was eight years old.
I remembered something she had said.
She had asked me
What I wanted to be
When I grew up.
With the joy of a child I said
“Oh, I want to be a famous writer.”
She frowned, and said,
“Oh no, you don’t want to do that.”
Puzzled, I fell for the bait,
And asked: “Why not?”
With an evil grin on her face,
She said,
“Because if you do that,
They’ll call you crazy
And lock you up.”
*
So there it was
The reason
My writing
Would get locked up
The reason I hid in a library
To write a book
The reason I wouldn’t
Let my books
See the light of publication.
*
Now as an adult,
I could write off
What she had said
As the ramblings of a somewhat
Nutty old grandma.
But when I was eight,
I couldn’t figure that out,
Especially when she told me
“Don’t talk about this.”
*
And later I remembered,
She hammered the nails
Of her evil intentions
Into my heart
With extremely vicious
Lies and actions
Abusive and cruel,
Which built a wall
Around my writing
That I couldn’t overcome.
*
But by bringing to the surface
What had locked up
My writing for
Forty five years,
At least
I had something
To work on.
It led to a lot of hard work,
Releasing the pain,
Overcoming what had been
Burned into my soul.
I knew I had made
A lot of progress,
When I published my first book.
*
Now I am writing
My next book
The story of how Grandma
Tried to poison my soul
And my journey
To overcome the writer’s block
She gave me.
I will expose those lies
To the light
And let them wither up and die
Like lies deserve to do.
**************
Photo Credits:
Images From – The Microsoft Office Clip Art Collection
“Pen on Paper” Completed in 2004 to serve as the basis for the publicity of a retreat for authors entitled Writers Refuge. jlseagull @ flickr.com Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.
“Attack of the Lunesta Moth (cropped)”; original by Maxintosh @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.
“Self Portrait, Walking Away: On one of the jetties at Gräsvik” Misteraitch @flickr.com Creative Commons, some rights reserved.
“The Wheat Harvest” the slowlane @ flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.
“Mud Golf on Orcas,” by wiselyb @ flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some rights reserved.
“Scary_04″ Aliwest44 @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.
“Locked Up” Derekskey @ flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.
“Big Chain” Shaycam @flickr.com Creative Commons. Some rights reserved.
Book Cover copyright by Dan L. Hays
Thoughts Along The Road to Healing 
Wow, Dan, very powerful. What a hateful woman to squash you in that way, to threaten you’d be locked up. And then you became so by not being able to write or allow yourself to get published. And you wrote about it all so very beautifully. I like the way you are killing off those old demons by exposing them to light through your book. Go get ’em!
Thanks Carolyn! Yes, when you expose what my grandmother did to me, it was pretty astonishing. When I publish Healing The Writer, the rest of her abuse will be exposed, and it is pretty evil. No wonder I repressed all memory of it for 45 years. Thanks for honoring the beauty of the way I wrote this up. It came out effortlessly last weekend – further proof of what we’ve been tweeting about – how freely my writing is flowing right now.
Yes, killing the old demons by exposing them to the light! My sponsor used to call it the Dracula effect. If you expose Dracula to the light of day, he withers up and dies! 🙂
Dan
I love that you shared this!!
How awful for her to plant that lie in your mind, but how wonderful that you were able to recognize that moment and move beyond it into the light of truth.
Thanks Tracie! Yes, it was an awful lie, but exposing it to the light sure did help it wither up and die. I read this poem at an open mic event last night, and I think that empowered my healing process in a very special way! 🙂
This is very eerie. I was also 8 when I first said that I wanted to be a writer. My mother was the one who told me how crazy that idea was. From what you’ve said here, your grandmother was very much like my mother.
In 1987 I wrote a novel, and when a publisher was interested, I, too, walked away. I was too busy to follow through, working, and raising 3 children. That’s what I told myself, too busy.
I was blocked for many years.
I did somehow manage to write, AND publish, another novel in 2000. But after a couple of book signings I walked away from the whole promotion thing. I so completely lost interest in my novel, that I moved 8 years ago and never told the publisher my new address, so they could continue to send me my royalty checks. I know my book is still being sold, someone told me he recently bought it. It could have sold a lot more, though, if I had bothered to promote it. Now here it is, the communicaton age, and I still have not promoted my novel AT ALL. Even though I could do it now so easily, I just don’t. I’ve thought about having it e-published, after doing a quick rewrite to bring it up to date. But again, I haven’t done anything but just think it.
I’m currently trying to write a true story about my PTSD. My working title is “From Here To Insanity.” I have been trying to write this book, for about 5 years. So far, I have only been “writing” it in my head. I have designed the book cover, but that’s all.
In May of last year, my hateful, narcissistic, sadistic mother sent me a 62 page hate letter. Unprovoked, she sent it just out of the blue. It’s not the first time my mother has sent me an insanely long hate letter, but it’s the first time that she sent copies of her horrible hateful letter to everyone in my family, my sisters, and my brothers, and my aunt.
The first time that my mother sent me a crazy-long hate letter, was in 1983, when I was 30. I had sent a synopsis of a novel to several publishers, and an editor with a large publishing house wrote back asking to see the rest of my book. I was SO EXCITED! After I jumped up and down and screamed for joy, I ran to the phone to call my mother. She was the first person I wanted to tell… I remember thinking, NOW my mother will finally be PROUD of me!
When I told her my thrilling news, I thought I heard her say “Oh no,” under her breath. But… that just didn’t make any sense, so I discounted what I thought I had heard. She was very quiet as I bubbled ecstatically on. Then, she said she had to go, she had something on the stove…
Two or three weeks later, a thick multi-stamped taped-together envelope came in the mail, with my mother’s return address. It was a 50 page letter written in her tiny neat handwriting on big yellow legal-sized pages. The letter started off with: “I wish I could write a book and tell the whole world all about how horrible of a daughter you are. But since I don’t have a publisher, I will have to do it in a letter.” And then her letter went on and on and on and on, for 50 pages, telling me every little thing that was ever wrong with me, in my entire life. She went all the way back to when I was a tiny girl! Her put-downs were so ridiculous, though! They were almost all very petty, complaints about things I had done or said or had FAILED to do or so, and the majority of her complaints were twisted and warped all out of reality. My mother never had given me the benefit of the doubt about anything, she always had assumed the very worst about me… even thought I really was such a GOOD GIRL! I would LOVE to have a daughter like me, so eager to please, so well-behaved! But even when I did everything right, my mother would accuse me of having a bad ulterior motive! She claimed she could read my mind, and my THOUGHTS made her mad!
That first hate letter that my mother sent, the 50 pager, had just one little sentence, out of all those many sentences, that was not Pure Hate. That one sentence said “I know your father does love you.” The next sentence said “However, he just doesn’t like you.”
My mother used to say that to me a lot, when I was growing up. “I love you, of course, because you are my daughter. I just don’t like you.” She would say it with a big proud smile on her face, as though she were feeling particularly saintly for managing to love someone as unlikeable as me. When I was about 10 or 11, I finally got up the courage to ask her WHY she didn’t like me, hoping I could fix whatever was wrong. Her reply: “It’s just YOU. It’s just the way you are. It’s the way you THINK.” How do you fix that?
I feel like I was “groomed” by my mother, to FAIL at everything. When my first husband asked me to marry him, I came home from my date so excited. Someone WANTED ME!! I told my mother that my boyfriend had asked me to marry him, and she said “He only thinks he loves you, because he doesn’t really know you. After he has lived with you a while, and gets to know you, he won’t love you.” Naturally, when my husband began beating on me, and cheating on me, a few months into our marriage, I thought it was all my fault. He had lived with me and gotten to know me, and didn’t love me.
My mother’s latest hate campaign against me happened not quite a year ago. I have wanted, ever since last May, to write a letter to HER, and tell her my version of reality, for once in my life.
But…. I have writer’s block. And, I don’t want to do any harm. She was widowed a couple of years ago. She is elderly and in poor health. I pity her.
I guess you could say that I love her, I just don’t like her.
Elaina
Elaina –
Thank you so much for this insightful and fascinating corroboration of my experience! I’ve never heard another person say “I was also 8 when I first said that I wanted to be a writer!” For me, it was as certain as breathing. Then, like you, it got taken away!
I’m glad that this poem brought up so much for you! As you can see, I relate to everything you’ve experienced. I’m actually writing my second memoir. Interesting that PTSD is such a strong part of your world – my first memoir, “Freedom’s Just Another Word,” is about how I remembered the violent incident from my teenage years that was the first source of my PTSD.
The memoir I’m now writing will be called “Healing The Writer,” and it’s about the second source of my PTSD, and the one described in the poem you read. I’m about 2/3 finished with it, and have been publishing chapters of it as articles for an online magazine. I only late in that process discovered how much the writing of that had helped my healing process. I’ve made the statement that “writing was more helpful than EMDR” for me.
I’ve actually set up a Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/HealingTheWriter and put links to the chapters. Scroll down to the bottom and you can see Chapter One, “Why Is This Fantastic News So Scary.” It’s where I describe the phone call from the publisher who wanted my book – and how that reality terrified me.
Sounds like your mother has been horribly and hurtfully cruel to you. I’m sorry you’ve had to go through that. I hope you can find some peace about it. I’ve sort of managed that about my grandmother, but mostly by acknowledging that she was really crazy – medically; and evil – spiritually. The way she tried to rob my soul with a gleeful look on her face is just my truth.
I relate to your husband’s experience with PTSD – I’ve always been able to connect with combat vets, but didn’t know why for many years, until I remembered the violent incident, and the “thousand yard stare” I acquired because of it. I spent many years with the symptoms of PTSD, but no cause that I could identify, and that was a most baffling time in my life.
Stay in touch Elaina! Survivors are the best ones to support each other. Next week we’re doing a radio show “Can We Really Recover?” Because the therapeutic community has been saying a lot that no, you really can’t, and you need us to help you all the way through it. But the way I’ve characterized it is that the therapists are like the VA, telling us what we need. Survivors are like the veterans group, bonded together because we understand what each other went through.
Dan
Thamk you, Dan.
Yes, your poem is the first time that I’ve ever read about or heard about someone else saying they wanted to be a writer when they were 8. It’s an amazing connection.
You may have seen the news headlines a couple of weeks ago, about it being 50 years since John Glenn orbited the earth that first time. I was 8 years old then, and in the 3rd grade (I was born in May, 1953). When John Glenn did his history-making orbit, my third grade teacher brought her tv into the classroom that day so that we could watch the event, Live. She gave us the assignment of writing about it.
It was my very long, very detailed report on John Glenn’s space flight, that sparked my desire to become a writer. The spark was fanned into a big blaze by my teacher’s enthusiastic response to my report. She loved it so much, she put it on display for the school’s annual Open House, several months later. She had my book report haning on an easel, all by itself, prominently displayed in the center of the room. Most of my classmate’s displays were artistic or scientific, mine was the only one that was nothing but pages and pages of WORDS. I was embarrassed! Until my teacher saw me with my parents, and got the three of us into a corner and told my parents that I had such an amazing talent for writing, that they must make sure I go to college and make the most of my intelligence and my writing talent. Oh… wow… I was not embarrassed any more!
I remember that both of my parents looked shocked and disbelieving… like they could not believe she was talking about ME, their stupid little girl who was always screwing up. On the way home, my dad maintained his slience, while my mother told me in no uncertain terms that the very idea of me ever going to college was ridiculous! “We could never afford to put you through college,” she said. “If we put anyone through college, it will be your brother. He will need to be able to support a family, but you will have a husband to support you!”
Interesting, the way life has turned out. My now 501-year-old brother has never married, never had any children. But I have been married, then abandoned with small children and no way to support them.
Yes, my mother has been horribly hurtful to me, my whole life long. Her worst acts happened after my dad came so close to killing her that I thought she was dead… and then, while he was in a mental hospital, where he got involved with the head RN, who he later married, my mother went into such a deep depression that she tried to gas us all to death. She actually told me, afterward, that she thought she would be doing us all a favor by taking us out of this hard cruel world, AND she said since she had brought me and my sisiters and brothers into the world, she had the right to take us out of it.
The things that my mother did to me, her main scapegoat, were so extremely horrible… and yet she complains about the tiniest little slights or wrongdoing that I or anyone else does. Her mother, for example, invited my mother to lunch one day and gave her a sandwich on rye bread, that was filled with nothing but egg whites. This was shortly after my grandmother had asked my mother, in a casual conversation, what foods my mother disliked the most, and my mother said that there was nothing in the world that she hated like rye bread, or egg whites. So when she lifted the silver cover off her plate, at the beautifully set table, feeling so special that her mother would give her such a rare treat… and then when she saw what it was that was under the silver cover, she said, she felt like she had been served a dead rat.
My mother cried and complained about that horrible incident, for decades. And I completely agree that it was an extremely hateful thing for her mother to do. But still, it is nothing compared to my mother telling me all my life that she didn’t like me. It is nothing compared to my mother trying to gas me to death while I slept in my bed, along with my 4 younger siblings, who were also sleeping in their beds. It was nothing compared to telling me that my husband would not love me after he got to know me. It for sure was nothing compared to my mother sitting my first husband’s lap, right in front of me, on my 17th birthday, less than 3 months after he and I had married, and as she sat on his lap with her arms around his neck, she told him how much she loved him and how sorry she was for not having warned him against marrying me!! He had beaten me that day, because I had asked him if we could go out to get a hamburger and a milk shake and to see a movie, like we had done while we were dating, since it was my birthday… I was happy, I had given him a nice birthday a few weeks before, his 19th. and I knew he had just gotten paid, and didn’t have to work that day, I thought he would say SURE to my idea of how to spend my birthday… but he BEAT ME UP for being so SPOILED as to ask him to spend his hard-earned money on such a frivolous thing. Then he drove to my mom’s house and cried on her shoulder, knowing, from my confiding in him, that she would never no way take my side in anything. and then, she gave him a Bible to take to me to tell me to read it and learn how a wife is supposed to behave. Then she followed him to our 1-room apartment and told me off for not being a better wife.
I said, “Mom, he beats me,” thinking that surely she would not side with him agaisnt me for that. I had bruises, and there was still glass strewn all over the aparment from when he had shoved me into a wall mirror that morning. My mother, who was only 35 then and still looked youthful, screamed at me, “I know he hits you, he told me himself, and I told him I don’t blsame him one bit! The Bible says spare the rod, spoil the child. If you are going to act like a spoiled child, then he has every right to beat you!”
It was one of the only times, no it was the only time, in my whole life up to then that I had ever stood up to my evil mother. I told her, Get Out Of My House.
Her jaw dropped open…. she was in SHOCK that I would DARE to BACKTALK her! (Yes alhough as she loved to tell everyone I was such a Horrible Person and a Horrible Daughter, yet she was STUNNED that I would dare to open my mouth and say a word against her!!!)
That was when she went over to my 19 yr old husband, who was sitting in one of our 2 chairs, and she hugged him and sat on his lap and told him how she loved him and how sorry she was for not warning him agaisnt marrying me.
We married in Feb. 1970. He was a high school drop out, and 18. I did not know, until after we married, that the ONLY reason he wanted to marry me, and get me pregnant right away, was to avoid the draft. Married men with a child were not drafted then.
I am sorry…. it sounds like I am nothing but a big whiny baby. I mean, it sounds that way to ME. I like to be happy and to count my many many blessings, such as the fact that I am now married to a man who is my best ever friend, he loves me so much, and accepts me just as I am, faults and all. I have much to be thankful for.
But my mother… I just can’t seem to get past all the things she did. I mean, I only told part of it here, there was so much more. And she is still lying about me and gossipipng about me to the whole family. She projects onto me, the things that she has done and said. She accused me of being after her husband, my wonderful GOOD stepfather, who was never anything but a perfect fatherly gentleman around me, and I would have rather DIED the most painful DEATH than to ever have anything inappropriate happen between me and him! But she projects onto ME, the evil things that SHE has done. SHE sat on MY husband’s lap… and who knows what else she may have done with him when he was crying on her shoulder and no one else was around. But then she accused ME of wanting HER husband! I was always so ultra modest around him.
I’m sorry. I’ll shut up now.
It seems to me that I have these huge SCREAMS inside me. That never came out, when they needed to . I kept them buried. and now for some reason the screams want to come out, before it is too late.
Yikes, sorry for the many typos. I was too distraught to proofread before sending… then belatedly I decided to reread what I just wrote, and, good grief. Obviously my brother is not 501, he is 50 going on 51!
PS~ I am a Christian, I have been since 2003. For decades I was totally turned off to Christianity by my Bible-thumping hellfire and brimstone mother, and I did not mention that my dad who almost killed my mother was a preacher, did I? So it is really a miracle that I now believe in Christ Jesus, as my Lord and my Savoir.
Because I believe in the Creator and the Giver of Life, and Worker of Miracles, I do believe that healing completely from my complex ptsd is totally possible. However, although I am seeking diligently for help and answers, I have been extremely dysfunctional ever since my mother wrote her 62 page hate letter last May, and 4 days after I found out about her letter, someone very close to me drowned, the day after she and I talked on the phone for about an hour, and in part we were talking about my mother’s horrible letter. I have been FROZEN in GRIEF and ANGER ever since the end of May ~ June 3, when my cousin drowned. I am so non-functional, I have laundry piled u[ that hasn’t been washed in since last May. I have not cleaned up the house since last May. I used to be called, by my kids, a Neat Freak. Now, my house looks like a garbage dump, Dust and filth and dirty dishes and you can barely walk through the rooms for all the clutter. I am going freaking CRAZY. I want to STOP this insanity. I hate living like this. I almost never go anywhere, not even to church, and I want to so bad, but leaving the house is HARD… but it is also HARD staying in this horrible house. My husband has been depressed, too, since my precious cousin drowned, she lived not too far from us, in Albuqueque. I still cannot believe she is gone. She was much younger than me, only 38. I miss her so much! She had a very high iq also and she was an RN plus she had a BA in Psychology. She told me, on June 2, the night before she drowned, that “it would explain everything” if my mother, her aunt whom she had known her whole life long, had Narcissistic Personaity Disorder. I felt BELIEVED and CLOSER to my precious cousin than I had ever felt to any of my relatives from my family of origin before… and the very next day, she freaking DROWNED in the Montezuma Hot Springs north of Las Vegas, New Mexico. She drowned in water that would not come up to her shoulder in the deepest part.
I feel….. freaking……. lost.
Wow. I really melted down here, didn’t I.
After I posted my last comment, I read my comments to my husband.
After I read everything that I have posted here to my husband, I cried. I mean, I BAWLED.
I told my husband what I had not even dared to tell myself, in the 9 months and 4 days since my cousin Elaine drowned. I said, “I had barely even started to deal with the huge emotional upheaval caused by my mother’s 62 page hate letter, when, less than a week later, my cousin drowned. The night before she drowned, my cousin, for the first time EVER, affirmed and validated my 58 years of hidden abuse from my mother. For the first time EVER, I had someone from my family of origin, squarely in my corner. It was the most wonderful feeling, to finally have that! But then, the very next day, God took her away from me!”
My cousin lost her LIFE. My cousin lost EVERYTHING. All I lost, was my cousin. All I lost, was my one and only relative from my family of origin who finally saw the truth and believed in me. I lost her believing in me. I lost HER. But how can I GRIEVE my loss, when it is so… SELFISH? My cousin lost her LIFE at the young age of 38. She never married and never had children, although she had wanted very much to do both. She lost so much….she lost everything! My loss seems utterly pathetic and small in comparison to her loss. How can I grieve my selfish grief? How can I admit that I feel so… OUTRAGED… that God would allow my cousin to freaking DROWN, the DAY AFTER she had affirmed and validated, for the first and only time ever, the lifetime of hell that my mother has put me through for 58 years? I feel so PETTY, and so WRONG, to be angry about this…….. because I want to scream WHY to God, WHY did you take my cousin’s love and belief and understanding and validation away from me, within just a few hours of her finally, for the first time ever, giving me that?
This is what has kept me stuck for 9 months and 4 days. I had always felt inferior to my younger cousin Elaine. She was the Golden Child. Her mother, my mother’s younger sister, doted on her. Her parents gave her everything. they put her through college, and then, when she wanted to be a nurse, the put her through nursing school. They supported and provided and were always there for her, always on her side, any time she had a problem. Our grandmother, our mothers’ mother, before she died, had treated Elaine like she was the perfect granddaughter she had always wanted. I was the firstborn grandchild, and my mother’s scapegoat, while Elaine was her mother’s, and her father’s, and our grandparent’s, pride and joy. Elaine was the success, and I was the failure.
Although my cousin was always polite and kind to me, I never felt really CLOSE to her emotionally, until the night before she died. It’s like, I FOUND her…… and then, God took her away from me.
I needed to tell God the truth about how I’ve been feeling. He already knew it, any way.
Thank you, Dan, for your blog, your writings, and especially your poem. Your words gave me what I needed, to finally break down the wall that was frozen around my heart. I’m so tired now. But, I feel lighter. I have some hope, now.
Elaina
Elaina –
I want to reflect a bit before I answer more extensively to what you’ve shared here. I don’t want to just dash off an answer and in doing so not honor the vulnerability you have shown. But for starters, let me say that I’m very honored that you felt safe enough to let all that out on my blog! I think it’s wonderful that “I feel lighter. I have some hope, now.” I know that’s been my experience when I have released some old deep wounds like you have done. And tired – oh yeah! Emotionally draining work, but fruitful!
I will dialogue more with you about what you’ve shared here in a bit! You go girl! 🙂
Dan
Thank you so much for your kindness and understanding.
In your comment you said: “I want to reflect a bit before I answer more extensively to what you’ve shared here. I don’t want to just dash off an answer and in doing so not honor the vulnerability you have shown.”
I appreciate that, more than I can say. But just THAT, is enough. I don’t feel the need for anything more. Your reply wasn’t a lot of words, but those few words say everything I feel I need.
It’s as though I had an emotional hemorrhage. My emotions, expressed in a multitude of words, were gushing out all over the place. Then you came along with a simple little tourniquet, and, POOF, the hemorrhage has stopped.
Elaina –
I’m glad you got so much emotional release and healing from the comments you put on my blog! Interactions like the one I just had with you only strengthen my resolve to share my experience and hope it helps people. I’m right now writing up an article for an online magazine about how my experience with the adult children of alcoholics program was such a pivotal part of my healing journey. I think your vulnerability in sharing with me added fuel and depth perception to that article!
Stay in touch, and keep me posted on how things are going! You’re a very special person, Elaina! 🙂
Dan
I am interested in reading your article about ACOA. I wish there were an ACOA meeting near me… if I had the strength to do so, I would start a group, myself. But I know I’m not up to doing something that ambitious, not at the present time, anyway. Maybe someday, after i’ve done more healing.
There is a lot of alcoholism and drug addiction in my family. But the biggest cause of the dysfunction and abuse was just plain meanness, aggravated by mental illness. Alcoholism, as I’m sure you know, is just another form of insanity.
The day after my big emotional catharsis here on your blog, I was finally able to write a post on my new blog, that I had been trying for over a month to write. My writer’s block has come undone! YAY!
Elaina
Elaina –
I’ll send you a link when I put up the ACOA article. We’re connecting it to a print version of the Minute to Freedom segments – which are really ACOA things I’ve either heard in meetings, or the meetings have brought up.
Sounds like there is a lot of addiction and alcoholism in your family – mine too! Takes a lot of strength to start an ACOA meeting. I tried to start a step study when I was living in Albuquerque, but it only made it six weeks before we had to admit it just wasn’t happening.
Wonderful news about the post you wrote! Sometimes it’s like that – I release some feelings, and it frees up the creative process. I just read your blog – wonderful thoughts, well expressed. By the way, we’re doing a radio show Tuesday called “Can We Really Recover?” because we’ve all been hearing it from the professionals that “no you can’t, or at least it has to be under the guidance of a professional.” I totally disagree with that, and we’ll discuss that in our show. For one example. The source of the writer’s block – the PTSD from grandma. I’m now working as a freelance writer, and writing so easily that I’m finding I can write whenever I need to. Four years ago, that wasn’t the case. My symptoms are so minimal these days that they hardly intrude any more!
Anyway – look at what reading your blog post brought up for me! 🙂 Congratulations on the blog post and the ability to freely write it!
Dan