• June 23-24, 1996: An inner journey
• May 3, 1997: Labyrinth Walks
• Feb. 22, 1998: A Faith Autobiography
• April 5, 1999 : Gethsemane

June 23-24, 1996: An Inner Journey

Written June 26, 1996, about an important inner event that happened June 23-24. When I go into a trance sometimes the other voices inside me speak, and sometimes I go into a symbolic world, a little like a dream but I have more control and it feels realer. This was an experience in that symbolic world, which I call the inner landscape.

It started with a dream Sunday night (June 23).

----------Dream----------

I walked out into the ocean with some other people, using a primitive air-hose breathing device. We went down into a kind of huge attic, full of old furniture. I had the feeling that we had gone back into the past to the time of Jesus, and that we were about to find something tremendously important that we could bring back with us as proof. There were monkeys running around the attic. I was a little afraid of them, but the leader of our group reunited a mother and baby monkey and let them down through a hole in the floor to a lower level.

----------End of Dream----------

I was awakened at that point by my daughter crying out, but I awoke with a very strong message in my mind that said: do not interpret this dream; take it literally.

Monday, I went to the office for a while. When I began to feel very spaced out, I went home. I lay down and decided to try to go back to the dream, in a trance this time (awake, not asleep).

----------in trance-----------

I found myself instantly back into the same scenes, walking into the ocean and then into the attic. I went through the hole in the floor of the attic where the mother and baby monkeys had gone, and found myself in a sunny meadow. I first thought of the line from the psalm about laying myself down beside still waters, then noticed children playing. Then I saw a little girl, lying huddled and dirty under a bush, at the edge of the meadow away from the other children. I went to her. I wanted to comfort her, but when I tried to pick her up she was clearly afraid. I lay down behind her, spoon-fashion. She then began to have a memory, which was both hers and in my head at the same time.

**********spoiler--abuse memory**********

She was about three or four years old, and she was remembering being raped. She remembered the fear of her knees being forced apart. She kept saying (sometimes this came out of my mouth out loud) how much it hurt--being penetrated, that is. She also felt crushed and suffocated by the hairy chest above her. She couldn't see where she was.

**********end of explicit memory**********

I kept holding the little girl and telling her I would protect her. When the memory faded, and she quieted again, I realized I had to leave the meadow and go back to the world. I tried to tell her I would protect her while I was gone, but that clearly didn't work, and suddenly I realized I could get one of the other inside people to protect her.

I thought first of the future self, and then realized that this was a job for an inner father (an inside person I have been trying to find). I tried to find an image of the inside father who would feel safe to the little girl. She didn't feel safe with an image of an older man (my known abuser was my grandmother's second husband, who was significantly older than my grandmother). Finally I found an image of my first father, who died when I was not quite three. That seemed safe, though I wasn't sure he was substantial enough to protect her. I left him sitting in front of her looking out into the meadow. I went back up into the attic, and then walked through the ocean and up onto the beach. There were some people on the beach and they cheered when I came out of the ocean.

----------end of trance----------

Looking back on it now I am most struck that I feel full of energy, not much upset by the new memory. It is a big new memory. I have always remembered some of the sexual abuse that I went through, but those memories are from late childhood and did not include penetration. The drama in the inner landscape gave the new memory meaning and put some of the healing right into the memory process, so that it wasn't as traumatic to remember.

I thank God for guiding my healing process so clearly. I'm slowly learning to be patient at time like right now where I feel like I don't know where I am at.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Written June 27, 1996 about an event that afternoon.

I wrote yesterday about the drama that went on inside me on Monday, where I found a little girl inside who went through a new memory. I had told my therapist about that on the phone and also faxed him a description I wrote for him Monday and also the description I wrote to MTS yesterday. I wanted some reassurance when I got to my therapy appointment today, but fairly quickly it became clear that I needed to go back to the little girl lying huddled under a bush.

When I went back inside, I followed the route from the dream, but ended up not so much in a well-visualized inner landscape but rather in an interaction between two parts of myself. I started to write about what happened using "I" for the adult self who is trying to understand and "she" for the little girl under the bush, but it came out a very one-sided story. So I am going to try to write it from both sides and simply call them the big one and the little one, because in fact, my consciousness was split or switched back and forth and my body was more often the little girl under the bush, though it switched some too. Some of the dialog was out loud and some was inside. My therapist did not say anything while the drama was going on.

----------in trance----------

big: I had had the thought yesterday that maybe I could gently wash the little girl, so I started with that idea. I thought maybe the inside father who had been keeping watch over her could go get water from the stream.

little: I was glad the big one had come back, but I was too frightened of being touched, so I ran away to the corner. I felt so dirty and shameful.

big: I tried to tell her that it wasn't her fault, that her abuser was the bad one. I wanted to hold her and tell her she was ok.

little: I couldn't bear to feel that he could simply overpower me; it must be my fault. I couldn't bear to have the big one touch me.

big: I tried just putting my hand on her shoulder, then when she jumped away I tried putting my hand on the floor so my fingertips just touched the shoulder on the floor. I realized that I was slipping into saying what my mother always used to say: "It's ok" or "It's going to be ok." I switched to what I had found as an alternative when my son had medical problems, and said simply "I'm right here with you."

little: Then I could cry. I buried my face in the floor and sobbed, and then I could let the big one hold me and rock me. I put my head down on her knees. I wasn't thinking of anything in particular but just letting out the pain and shame.

After awhile I stopped crying and moved to kneel by the window. The big one was still saying "I'm right here with you." I felt the sunlight coming in, and it became God saying to me "I'm right here with you."

First I protested; I said: "It's not fair," and "Why didn't you protect me." But I kept hearing God saying "I'm right here with you," and gradually I believed it. Other inside people gathered around and touched my shoulders or reached out to me to say that they were here with me too.

big: I felt some peace, and I said a prayer to thank God. Then I started to come back to the surface, though it was a few minutes before I could face the outside world.

-----------end of trance-----------

When that was over, I felt very drained and a bit uncertain about how to hold this big event inside the rest of me. I don't know what is different and what is not.

Talking about Monday, my therapist said something about how I was moving gradually to integrate what happened by interpreting it. He is wrong, or at least interpretation is not the right word for me. What I need to do is build bridges; make what has happened real to more parts of my system. Interpretation may be how my most intellectual part makes it real, but more important are the other ways that other parts make it real. My creative part wants to make it real by painting a picture of God saying: "I'm right here with you."

next | back to top

other stories: Labyrinth Walks | A Faith Autobiography | Gethsemane

being multiple | my system | self-diagnosis | therapy | integration
response to story on recovered memories and mpd

home | pam | pem | female-female abuse | book reviews |