Family Art Therapy

Yesterday at family art therapy, the therapist asked us to draw an abstract about our family.  Each of us grabbed some crayons or markers and went to work.  It turned out, for the most part, 5 of the 6 family members there drew somewhat the same thing; symbolic representations of each family member.  I actually inserted my version of it below.  It’s my thoughts on each family member colored in their favorite color.  I wanted to show that although we’re all different, we’re still connected, like a jigsaw puzzle.

The top row:  My husband (encompassing), 2nd daughter (flowers, sweetness), 3rd son (lego block), Vale (buildings/architecture

Bottom row: Me (wounded heart), oldest son (nebulous like water), youngest son (wheels/always in motion), Payne (a book)

Yeah, I’m not much of an artist.

However, Vale’s younger brother seemed to tell more of the truth with his.  He drew his oldest brother off to the side, torn away from the family, hand out resisting us.  That’s how the oldest son is right now.  In the lower portion you can see me having 7 arms out, supporting the entire family, while my husband is depicted by a brain (upper left corner).  Near the bottom is Vale, being pulled down by two demons: Self Mutilation - he’s the fat one with the pitchfork and Eating Disorder - which is the skinny one.  Vale is shown struggling against them, pulling himself out of a pit.  The artist is the second block from the left on the top row (again Lego, and the word School is in fire, cuz he doesn’t like school).  Artist and his two sisters are holding up CTY for Center for Talented Youth, a program they all belong to.

Anyway, of all our drawings, I like this one the best.  It really demonstrates what’s going on in this child’s heart and mind.  It’s sad to see him depict the oldest brother torn away, but I am relieved to see that he drew Vale rising out of the pit.

What are your thoughts?

A second question

 Last night I dreamed that his father brought him to me and he had a very large chunk of flesh taken out of his wrist.  We concluded it was a suicide attempt so we had to take him to the hospital.  When he walked away I could see three angry red slices on the back of his thigh.  When will I stop having nightmares about my son’s cutting?

No posts? A Mini Vaca

Hello Faithful Readers,

I know you don’t wake every morning with bated breath wondering what’s going on at the FTB~FTM blog.  

I realize that your day isn’t structured around our familial ups and down.

I understand you all have lives!  

But I do feel that I need to give some type of accounting as to why we were gone from Tumblr for a few days.  Our family took a much needed mini vaca!  Simply put, we just went to a major city not too far from our home for an overnight stay where we visited historical sites and museums.  It was so nice to just get away and pretend for a small time that we have no struggles…well no out of the ordinary struggles. ;)

I’m pleased to say we only had one minor Vale related incident.  We went to a large mall to have get-what-you-want from-the-food-court dinner which is a family favorite.  Vale ordered a pretty decent sized sandwich and an order of fries.  Apparently he ate the first half rather quickly and his older, yet ignorant, brother commented about how much/how quickly he ate.  (Go ahead all you ED related folks, give a big ol’ face-palm!) Brother said it in a pleasant and complimentary way, but you dear readers with ED know that in your world there isn’t such a thing as a complement when it comes to food intake like this.  I’m sitting on the other end of the table desperately shaking my head, “stop talking! stop talking!” and Brother just sits going, “What?  What?” *sigh*

Vale looks at me after hearing the Brother’s comments.  I guess his food in his mouth was suddenly bitter because he just put his fork down and pushed his plate away.  Actually, it seemed almost defiant the way he did it.  He threw his fork down.  I wonder what was behind that.  Hmmm.  Fortunately, Vale was in a more cooperative state of mind and did end up eating the contents of the sandwich, although he left the bread (no big deal).  That minor hiccup largely avoided.

Overall it was a lovely time for us to be just a family.  Not us being a family that is dealing with sexual abuse trauma and it’s fallout.  You gotta put that a side sometimes.

Run From the Herd: The gift that keeps on giving

Link: Run From the Herd: The gift that keeps on giving

runfromtheherd:

I wonder how many people really understand what a gift Tumblr is? I can’t tell you how much I needed something like this when I was an adolescent/young adult. The things that I struggled with, I struggled with alone. I kept journals for a time, but I still had to write in code, in case somebody…

A Selfish Post (whining, you are warned)

Vale had a stumble.  Now, honestly… I expected that.  Cutting is a vicious demon, and it isn’t easily shaken.  But the one thing about dealing with Vale is that he takes his integrity seriously and he has always been really honest.  Until this week.  

Vale has gone two weeks without cutting, or so I thought.  Today he was off all day.  So tired, only wanting to sleep.  He didn’t have a fever, I couldn’t see if anything was wrong.  I started to worry.  Vale has resorted to punching himself when he couldn’t cut, so I was concerned if he might have internal bleeding (and yes I concede that may be ridiculous of me) or a cut that may be infected.  So I started to push.  And he started to evade.  My stomach flipped and I knew.  He decided to cut on his calf, someplace we didn’t know about, and then lied about it.  Repeatedly.  The cutting wasn’t bad, nothing was infected, but we had a deal.  We wouldn’t search him as long as he was honest.  *sigh*  And I’m sure you can guess… this all lead to problematic eating as well.  He said everything is just happening so quickly, with his healing.  Writing a speech… giving it, sending a letter to the editor.  I guess it was a little too much.  

Now here comes the whining.  First of all, I want a vacation, okay?  I wanna go away and just read deliciously fat library books and eat deliciously fat cookies.  Second of all, why does this stuff always seem to happen on a Saturday night?  See, Sunday is church …. and when serious stuff goes down, you have to have time to decompress before going to bed and then, let me tell ya, I don’t wanna get up for church.  Couldn’t this stuff go down on a Friday, so I can stay up late and sleep in the next day?  And then lastly, do you think I want to search my sexually abused son?  How crummy is that?  I hate it!  I laid it on the line tonight.  If he keeps lying we are going to have to continue to ensure his body is okay, and that will include the groin area.  I just pray it doesn’t come to that.  That would be dreadful.  But what is a parent to do?

Cutting, I hate you!  Leave my son alone!!

I kept on hiding in the bathroom for about five minutes, but my mom made me come out. Again, coming out of closets and rooms. Gah. My mom told me it was time to let go of the shame and go in there. She was literally pushing me-like…she actually had to PUSH me out of the kitchen. I was holding onto counters, and grasping at doors, but in the end I got out there.
Vale, on appearing in a t-shirt, exposing his arms, in front of his tutor.

Fallout: Sleep (or the lack thereof) pt. 2

Why write a second post on the lack of sleep?  There is a different level for the lack of sleep I experience.  I’m not trying to say that mine is worse or better than any other member of the family, but if I could compare the lack of sleep to Dante’s vision of Hell, my lack is spiraled down lower in the descending rings.  To say it’s only my quality of sleep that is impacted would be a gross understatement.

I’m tired.  I need sleep so badly.  But I just don’t want to sleep.  I know when I go to bed I will fight with falling asleep, fight with staying asleep and fight while I am asleep.  And then there’s the fight I face when I wake up.  The other night I popped an Ambien and died in my bed.  After waking approximately 5 hours later I woke feeling refreshed, thinking that I had a good and full night sleep at last.  I couldn’t believe it that I thought I had succeeded with only 5 hours.  That’s where my sleep pattern has disintegrated to.  

Most days I long for sleep so badly by 1:00 in the afternoon, and not know how in the world I’m going to make it through supper time.  But what choice do you have when you’re the mom?  Take a nap?  I wish.  Who would make supper, ensure the children finish their schooling, manage the anxiety that would be within Vale as I rested and keep him safe?  That lot falls completely to me.

And of course, the last enemy of my sleep is fear ~ fear that plays out in one of two ways; either by keeping me awake or by bringing vivid nightmares.  My sleep is so light that every movement within the house wakes me with a start…’is that Vale wondering through the house?  Is he going down stairs?  Is he in the bathroom?’  That can happen several times a night.  And the nightmares?  Wes Craven could only wish he could get that creative.  Every single unmentioned worry, every seed of dug deep dread would take root and flower in my sleep.  Every sense would be involved in imagining; I could hear the rope pulled taught.  Feel the cold rain on my face.  Smell the acrid dankness in his clothing, the copper in his blood.  Taste acid in my mouth.  The horror entrenches itself so solidly, mere waking doesn’t disgorge it.

I need to sleep.  But I just. CAN’T.

Fallout: Sleep (or the lack thereof) pt.1

One of our most pressing problems is the lack of sleep.  We are one of the most tired families I know.  Sleep is a major problem around here.  No one is getting enough of it.

Sleep is affected by trauma, at least in our experience, in many ways.  Anxiety is running rampant around this place.  The anxiety is played out in a number of different ways, but mostly in distractability; either by not being able to be distracted by the trauma or by using various means to distract oneself.  So we have kids that are highly focused on Vale and his needs and can’t sleep because they are worried about him and we have kids who are trying to deal with things by becoming obsessed with other things.  Vale’s youngest sister is totally into Les Miserable right now.  She read the book, is trying to memorize the music, it’s a constant companion to her.  But all this obsessing distresses her sleep.  

Couple this with nightmares which seem to be like a virus throughout the house.  They bring the stress of the day into our dreams.  It makes the strain almost inescapable.  Some of the children have reoccurring and vivid dreams that they can’t shake in the daytime.  Thus, even though the children are very tired and need to sleep, they don’t want to, because they know what awaits them.

Now anyone who’s ever experienced lack of sleep or been around people who aren’t sleeping well, you know what follows; contentiousness, augmentative behavior, short tempered, lack of patience, tears, etc.  So we have moments of really petty fighting which wears everyone down.  People don’t have the wherewithal to resist bickering and people don’t have the wherewithal to not bicker back.

As a mother, I don’t know what to do about this problem.  I can put the family to bed early, try to make sure they sleep in as much as they can.  Try to provide comfort and reassurance during the day, hugs and kisses when they need them throughout the night.  But I can’t reach in and turn off their minds.  I can’t remove the problem.  Some days I can almost hear the creaking of the walls as stress bears a load more than they were build to sustain.  All I can do is pray, stay steadfast in the knowledge that God will provide the strength for each day, and do my best to reinforce those walls when I see the plaster crack.  But, I’m really tired too.

Fallout: The whole family

As I begin this series on fallout, I think the very first thing I would like to point out is that it affects *everyone*.  I find that it is one of the biggest misconceptions people on the outside have is that this trauma is just impacting Vale and his parents.  That is so ridiculous!  How could we possibly keep such a thing contained to just a few people when we live together?  It escapes me how narrow some people’s understanding is.

Before I go any further, allow me to sketch in a little more about our family.  We are a family of 8: 2 parental figures and 6 kids:



  • 43 yr old Mom (me!) stay at home, homeschools
  • 43 yr old Dad, works full time (and then some) managing a restaurant
  • 20 yr old male (adopted ~ out of high school)
  • 14 yr old female (Payne) 
  • 14 yr old male (Vale ~ he’s 6 months younger than Payne) (adopted)
  • 13 yr old male
  • 11 yr old female
  • 10 yr old male (adopted)

When a child discloses that he or she was sexually abused, had an eating disorder, is struggling with self mutilation, or in our case all three, there is no way to to restrict that revelation to just 2 or 3 people.  As you will see in my next few posts on fallout, the pain your child is going through is going to touch every area of your life.  How can you say, “No we aren’t going to use that swimming pass you got for your Christmas present right now, but I’m not going to explain why” (true to life scenario in our family ~ swimming would mean Vale would have to expose his arms, something he is only just starting to do).

Routines change, schedules change, attentions shift, strain is visible on our parental faces.  How in the world could this not trickle down on every member?  We are together almost all the time.  We are one of those odd families that eats dinner together 6 nights out of 7.  We like being together, and being a family means we share: joys and heartaches, successes and failures, traumas and triumphs.  Or more importantly, should it not trickle down to every member?  What would be be sparing the younger ones of?  Difficulty?  Pain?  Fear?  Isn’t the human existence riddled with these?  Yes we do shelter the youngest members from the worst of it and try to make all information age appropriate, but shutting them out would cause more distress in my opinion.  They’re not stupid, they can see things happening in the house.  Even with the most clandestine of trauma management, the most whispered of conversation, there is a strained vibration in the house, and not one child would miss that.

I guess every family needs to figure out what’s best for them and how to share information around with other members, but I think that you’ll find that trying to keep things a secret will be more time consuming and energy sapping than you could imagine. Fallout is going to happen. Some days it’s not a big deal, some days it will send you sprawling. Everyone is going to have to stick together.

A favorite

No.. it’s not a post about fallout, like I said I was going to write.. still going to do this.  But I thought I would post something slightly different.

Vale and his “twin” Payne are close.  The twin is in quotes because they aren’t really twins.  Vale was adopted, Payne is homegrown.  They are a little less than 6 months apart.  But they do look a like, and they are very similar in personality.  Payne has been exceptionally supportive of Vale.  

So yesterday, after going on a very long walk with Payne, Vale asks me, “Is it wrong to have a favorite sibling?”   I laughed.  I assured him it was not, as long as his favor doesn’t exclude everyone else.  In fact Vale may find that Payne is his favorite sibling to share troubles and secrets with, but if he wants to go to the ballgame, Payne ain’t the gal for him.  Vale has 5 siblings, he may find that all of his siblings are a favorite for something.

What I think is so neat about Vale and Payne is that both of them have personalities lend themselves to being more closed, more stoic.  These are both children of trauma.  No, Payne wasn’t raped, but she has a lot of physical problems.  She went through two years where she was forced to her knees by a pain syndrome called Reflex Neurovascular Dystrophy.  It took a long time to diagnose, and it was brutal to treat.  She will always have it has a partner in her life.  So, although it is not the same, Payne understands what it means to suffer.  And her quiet, steadfast sometimes intrusive devotion to Vale makes this journey a little easier. 

You know what’s ironic?  I think Payne is helping Vale to heal… but I think he’s helping her to heal too.

What about the fallout

I want to write a series of posts on fallout.  To my surprise, so few people understand what lies in the aftermath of sexual abuse.  I guess they see it as one and done or something.  ”Boo hoo, have a little cry then back to life has normal” and I can’t think of an idea that is further from the truth.  It still hits me for a loop when we encounter something that is seemingly so innocuous, but due to fall out it becomes a problem.  Going to a restaurant, simple phrases people toss out, being at Chuck E Cheese for crying out loud!  These have all become somewhat of a situation due to the consequences of a traumatic event.

As always, I have other survivors and especially parents of survivors out there in mind when I write my blog entries.  No two circumstances are exactly alike, I realize that.  So there will never be anyone else who visits this blog and experiences all the same things as we do.  But when they read a post about something that seems so random yet impacts so hard perhaps they will feel like, “yeah!  Something like that happened to us too!”  Because outside of trauma real uh… normal.. um, .. regular… *darn*…non traumatized people (?) couldn’t relate.  We have our own weird little sub culture, I guess.  But we aren’t alone, are we.