Rake chi. I find that raking pinestraw off my lawn has become a useful therapy tool. I rake. The rake moves. A pile grows. Green grass shows through. Repeat. ...

Humanizing my demons is very tough for me. Yet if I don't humanize the abusers, then, in my case, I am the child-sister of demons. And that's also difficult. I know it doesn't compare, Arfie, not by a long shot, in scale or scope, I apologize if I offend.

To belong to homo sapiens as a species is a conundrum. How one species can give us the pedophiles and genocide and toxic waste, and yet also produce the book of Tao, the beatitudes, and achieve the technology needed to literally touch the moon? So far beyond my capacity to understand, that I don't know where I am in the continuum, where I am under that magical perfect bell curve...

Breathe in. Rake. Breathe out. Rake. May you feel and be and sort in peace and safety, Arfie.

It's worth trying, arfie. It took from between 1995 to 2007 to do it but I finally got my breakthrough about the car bombing I was in when I was 9 in Uruguay. In 2009, 2 years later, I went back there to that street corner for the first time. We got to that in therapy following my flashbacks. I couldn't have done it without a therapist, though.

In that alphabet soup my damaged memory has made of my therapy, I think I want to keep the "Amnesia Therapy" intact. It still feels more like ". . .a memory block coming down. . ." than any of the psycho-theories I have read since that therapy. When a "memory block" is ready to come down, it will find its triggers. In my own strictly personals, one trigger leads to the other. Blinding lights everywhere and not a single glaring care. . .

Still sorting. Rake toss. . . Rake pull. . . Keep the rhythm. . .

All of my chicks were accounted for this morning. Yesterday afternoon a red-tailed hawk (chicken hawk) soared through the yard, so close to my seat on the porch that even my near-sighted vision could be certain it really was a red-tailed hawk. Is it monstrous to think about getting more chicks to lure them back? Food is always a great luring tool. Get your chicks at Arf's Cafe? ? ?

Personally? I prefer to emphasize choice.

I choose not to feed my potential to destroy others?

They choose to allow themselves that privilege.

...I'm human, they are human. The difference is choice. We have the potential for great good or great evil. It depends on what part of us we feed and build on.

@arfie: try putting cat food on an open, raised item, like a shed roof. English sparrows ( invasive, non-native ) love cheap cat food...and raptors like sparrows...

The approach that is working for me is what my therapist calls "parts work". Of course, I'm nowhere near as far along as you are in terms of actually remembering traumas, so I don't know if I'll be able to hold onto this when the time comes. But right now, the approach is to keep a part of my awareness in the adult present and to muster my motherliness on behalf of the wounded child/teen/young adult who is reacting to the trauma.

Remembering that I need to "be there" for the wounded child part forces me to keep one foot in the present and muster all my strength to do so. And then, I am able to comfort or just be with the child, instead of letting her suffer alone through the feelings that were so unbearable.

I don't know if this approach will hold up when and if I get overwhelmed by memories. Even without narrative memories (vs. feeling and body memories), it's been pretty challenging at times.

I am just sorry you have to go through this, that you ever had to go through this.

Pros have told me that by the time the dissociation is strong enough to create trauma induced amnesia, the lead in and post-trauma events are even more blocked than the trauma. Benign memories are far easier to repress than the traumatic events. As I my memory has healed, I have discovered some beautiful memories buried in the mind-slides of the trauma. Even a child prostitute has good moments.

There isn't allot of value in remembering the Janes and the Johns. They are just perv clients. Never knew their humanity to begin with and simple math tells me most of them are dead now, anyway. As the parade of perv faces cascades through my memory, I am working to keep my attention on the periphery of the flashbacks. Am I gonna find another gem in the perv-show? Sometimes I can take it in the spirit of treasure hunting.

arf i am blown away you survived that and have your soul intact there must be a ton of good in your soul

Hm-m-m-m-m. . . Am I on to something with "ruminating the flashback?" The memories are still ugly as sin, but far more manageable when I consciously treat them like memories, clearly distinct from anything in the here and now, whatever the similarities.

I do believe it is the "Janes" who are the subject of the flashbacks. I have had lots and lots of help, from both genders, in processing the "John" memories. Lots of empathy. Lots of compassion.

With the "Janes," cultural denial has met experimental politics. Confusion on top of confusion. I think. For sure "it" is too fragile to stand up to a political rally of any kind.

Still sorting. . . Still feeling fragile. . . Tangled memories are incredibly fragile. The threads snap and snarl further with the greatest of ease.

Thanks for the sort space.

sort away Arfie. It's ok. small bits at a time of what you can handle. It wasn't done in one day so go easy on yourself. as far as the red tailed hawk I would say get a giant owl statue on top of the chick coop. it may make them think twice. ((soft gentle hugs) while you sort, rake, then rest and drink lots of water.

Still feeling fragile on this score. Holding my own in the rest of my life, but I have come to guard against all power of suggestion, (especially out of the pro-alphabet-soup) when I am working to allow a memory to emerge.

Have I identified the sequence I go through each time I go through a memory block coming down? I am far from confident, but I think the sequence may be as follows:

1) Freeze: it fairly well paralyzes me for a spell. I do not believe I have the awareness to measure time in this state. No telling what will happen if I am prodded out of the freeze state.

2) Fight: I fight to keep those memories in their prison cell. I believe I have a veritable prison complex in my head, just for my childhood memories. I don't believe too many of my adult memories are incarcerated there. Not too confident in that belief. It is hard to know what has been forgotten.

When I was in the habit of fighting the memory, here is where I would divert into full, psychotic episode. When I can calm the fight instinct and allow the memory to emerge, it moves to the next step.

3) Vivid replays/flashbacks of the memory. At first, the traumatic memory which necessitated the initial dissociation is all I was able to see. As I have relaxed enough to allow the process to complete, I have come to believe quite allot of memories have been lost in the mind-slide. Like a Hollywood horror movie, the full diversity of life continues to go on in the background.

4) Waves of attached emotions. Step 3 remains very dissociated for me. I feel the emotions in separate, equally dissociated waves.

5) Integration and processing of the traumatic memories and emotions.

6) The freedom to ruminate the peripheral memories. Turns out I have some memories worth treasuring in my White Trash Whore childhood.

I think. I theorize. Strictly personal. No ex-spurting attached.

Perhaps one day I will brave more laps in the alphabet soup to see if it fits any established psych theories, but for now. . .

Still sorting. . . Keeping it strictly personal. Feeling wa-a-a-ay too fragile for an academic debate.

Thanks for the sort space.