Faith renewed through the Bible

Closeup of holy bible with eyeglasses on

Because my trauma stems from being abused by a priest and the betrayal I felt by the Church and God, I lost my faith early on in the process of coping with what happened. I was angry, confused and lost. I felt that there was no way that I would ever let God or the Church back into my life.

Time passed and my struggles only got worse. In some of my darkest days I would sit by myself and try to make sense of what was happening. I would try to rationalize my feelings and my life in general. I was very overwhelmed and in trying to take some sort of control of my life, I would lament my lack of faith. One day I realized that it was me who was putting this restriction on my life. I was the one who chose to leave God and religion and the Church in my past. It was the first time that I thought that I needed to restore my faith.

As detailed in this previous post about the role of faith in my healing, it would be years before I actually did allow God and the Church back in. ( https://wp.me/p4rm8Q-14 ) Before that time, I explored all types of faith and religion. I was still pushing back against catholicism but wanted desperately to find faith, knowing that faith would help me through these trials.

I researched Buddism, Judaism, Islam and even Rastafarianism. While they are powerful anchors to God, none felt like they belonged to me. It turns out that finding out about these other religions was good for me. It started my path back to God and it showed me that my heart truly did rest in Catholicism.

Over the years I searched out bible verses that I could look to for strength. Verses that spoke to what I was going through in general and remind me of the power of Christ’s love. This was not easy for me. I have never been able to understand the bible. The way it’s written has always confused me and I haven’t been able to make much sense of the writings much less garner anything from the teachings.

In time I found a few verses that really spoke to me. They strengthened me and helped get me through some hard times. For this post, I’m writing about these verses. About where I was in my journey when I found them and how they directly affected my healing and still do today.

Isaiah 43:1-5

Do not be afraid.  I will save you.  I have  called you by name-you are mine.  When you pass through deep waters, I am with you. Your troubles will not overwhelm you.  When you pass through fire you will not be burned.  The hard trials that come will not hurt you.  For I am the Lord your God.

This was the first verse that really made me feel God’s presence was still in my life even though I had tossed Him aside. Throughout this journey I have felt so alone. Even when people I love were supportive and wanting to help, I felt completely isolated and on my own. I appreciate all of the offers of help and understanding and the love but the fact remained that I felt that as much as they intended good, they had no way of truly understanding or helping me. I felt like I was on an island and no one was coming for me.

Isaiah 43 reminded me that I was never alone. That in my darkest times God was sitting with me, comforting me. What really struck me through this realization was that I had forsaken Him, yet He never left my side even though I had shunned Him. This verse was proof that I was on the right path. It showed me that God was always there and that I had made it to this point through His love and grace. I knew I needed to accept Him going forward.

My troubles did not go away and in some ways got worse. Reading this verse helped me remember that I would make it through it all with Him guiding me. I could literally feel His power in my darkest times. After abandoning Him, how could I not believe in His grace now that I was accepting Him.

James 1:2-3 and Romans 5:4

Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.-James 1:23 Perseverance, character and character, hope-Romans 5:4

I place these two together because they really taught me the importance of actively persevering through my trials. Perseverance is a very important part of life. When you are challenged as I have been, it becomes critical. I’ve mentioned in previous posts that there were many times early on when I felt that there was no hope.

Understanding that hope would come through perseverance was very important for me. When I was feeling hopeless I had no idea how I could ever find hope. Locked away alone, lamenting just how painful life had become it was impossible for me to see hope. Believing in God’s grace and restoring my faith showed me the path to hope.

These passages taught me that I simply needed to not give up. That I needed to endure these tribulations and trust that God would not put me through anything that I was incapable of rising above with His guidance. Perseverance did show me the light at the end of the tunnel, the hope I desperately needed. Hopelessness was a sign that I was not allowing God in my life. My faith and trust in God allowed me to persevere when I don’t believe I could have without HIm. My faith is strengthened now every day allowing me to continue to stay the course.

Romans 12:12

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer

Beginning with this passage, the next three are ones that I look to daily now for guidance and as reminders of God’s grace. Each day is still hard to get through. It isn’t easy to get out of bed sometimes, I feel like I can’t face the day. Some days I just can’t get out of a bad mood and I feel like I won’t know how to break that cycle.

Romans 12:12 reminds me to breathe during these times. That I must look to God and that He will show me the way through the trials. I like how short and to the point it is. It’s simple in words yet powerful in message. It reminds me that I do have immense hope in my life and that patience is necessary to remember that this too shall pass. Prayer during the hard times will center me and bring me to a place of peace in my day.

1 Peter 5:10

And after you have suffered, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen and establish you.

This passage was the first time I realized that my suffering will not be forever because it clearly states “After you have suffered”. For the longest time I believed that this anguish would never end. I felt like this is who I am, that I am meant to suffer and that is just how it will be. This defeatist attitude was soul crushing for me because I am, at heart, an optimist. Seeing no good in my future, only more suffering, was hard to accept.

Faith assures me that He will bring me back to myself. As the passage says, He will restore me, He will confirm, strengthen and establish me. Understanding and believing this is something I rely on daily now. I try to read this passage at least once a day although I’m not great at remembering to do so. It is important to know that when this is over it will be Him that ends it. It will be Him that strengthens me to be the survivor that He expects me to be.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Praise be to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our troubles so that we may comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we receive from God

This passage was when I first started to realize that my suffering is for a greater good. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, God expects much of me as a survivor of these struggles. He expects me to receive His comfort and understand it. I have a calling to live in His comfort and provide that comfort to others who suffer as I have.

I have mentioned several times throughout these posts that I refuse to accept that I have suffered for no reason. That I believe wholeheartedly that I am meant to take what I have learned about suffering and surviving and use it to help others. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 is when I first realized this.

This passage showed me that I have been called by God. That He had not chosen to punish me. He had chosen me because He believes in my ability to rise above the struggles and help others who suffer. This gives me purpose. It gives me energy and drive and it gives me hope.

One Love

My Peace

I was born on an island, the island of Mallorca, the largest of the Islas Baleares in Spain. I think it’s pretty incredible that just being born on an island puts that vibe into your blood. Island flows within me, I breathe it and live it and even though I spent 40 years away from it, it was beckoning to me my entire life. My peace has always been there, waiting for me to find it.

For as long as I can remember I have been drawn to islands. Before I could plan and execute a trip for myself I would dream of islands. I remember fantasizing about walking with my feet in the water. The sand compressing under my feet and the sweet scent of the sea on the warm breeze surrounding me. Palm trees lining the streets and the easy pace of life that I imagined would be evident. I’ve always known that an island would be my peace, I really don’t know why it took so long to get back to it.

Moving to the USA

I left my island when I was only one year old. We packed up and moved to California and I have zero complaints about the life that the move afforded me and my family. I am so proud of and impressed with my parents for making that move, how scary it must have been. The uncertainty alone must have been so overwhelming. We returned to Mallorca for a vacation when I was three years old and then I didn’t come back for forty years. I have very vivid memories of that trip when I was a toddler, even though they may be due to home movies more than anything.

One thing I know stuck with me and could not have been the function of a home movie or a story I was told is a very specific scent. The smell of a Mallorcan breakfast treat cooking, the ensaimada. Today, if I walk down the street in the morning in the beach town I’m living in I will catch a whiff of the sweet smell of the ensaimada and it stops me in my tracks. It conjures up far off, deep emotions and I am immediately transported back to my youth.

My return to the island

When I returned to Mallorca for the first time in 40 years I really didn’t know what to expect. I was meeting my brother and his family in a small beach town during their vacation and I was excited about that. I had family here, I knew their names but I did’nt know them and I was nervous.

From the moment I landed and was met by my aunt and uncle and very close family friends it was like a whirlwind. I was trying to take it all in and remember every sight, sound and scent but it was overwhelming. I just decided to let them guide me and show me where I am from and it turned out to be the right thing to do. Now, when I return and I take my first deep breath of the island air, my lungs are filled with happiness. I feel the island being injected into my bloodstream through my lungs. It’s invigorating and relaxing and peaceful.

How things have changed

Five years after that initial return, I now have an apartment here in Mallorca a quick two minute walk from the beach. I want to be clear, I love it here and this is where I want to live out my life. Right now however it’s not where I want to be but it turns out it is where I need to be. I hate every minute of being 6000 plus miles away from my daughter but the healing that has happened while I’ve been here could not have happened anywhere else.

Mallorca is a paradise, the beaches are gorgeous and the old towns are like fantasy. The sunsets are mind blowing and are better every night. The pictures you see do not come close to showing the charm and divine beauty that it holds within. I know how fortunate I am to have such a deep, genetic tie to this island. What I have learned over the last six months of living here more than anything is that the beauty it holds goes much deeper than the surface for me.

The island’s role in finding my peace

It’s no secret that I have struggled a lot in my life. In recent years the struggles have been more acute and frightening. I decided to come to Mallorca mostly because I can afford to live here on my retirement. It would give me an opportunity to get my life together. No scrambling to find a place to sleep every night. No added stress about the cost of living in Northern California or living outside of my means. I needed to find a way to get my head on straight and find some peace. Living under those pressures was not allowing it, they were making things significantly worse.

I came here to settle things down. To live a somewhat normal life. To understand my strengths and my weaknesses and find a way to live within my capabilities. I needed to take a good hard look at myself and to stop wallowing in self pity over my circumstances. Today, I am proud of the progress I’ve made but it hasn’t come easily.

There have been very difficult, very low times here. Lot’s of tears and loneliness and fear. Uncertainty that fuels anxiety and I shut down. What I found in those times was that my peace was just down the road, at the beach.

Where I go for peace

When times are hard I walk to the beach, sit on a bench on the promenade and breathe. I take in the sights and sounds. I smell the fresh sea breeze and watch the people from all over the word walk by. My peace comes in the form of the sounds of the small waves lapping the shore. The seagulls squawking as they fly past searching for an unsuspecting tourist to dive bomb for their food. I feel peace in the palm trees over head lining the walkways, swaying in the wind.

At times I feel overwhelmed or sad and it helps to sit on the bench. I have sat there for hours at times and sometimes it takes that long for the peace to envelope me. Sometimes my peace is elusive. I get stuck in my head and I need to find a way to be present. Allowing myself to feel it all on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea is how I am centered. It’s where my future comes into focus and it is where I have real, honest peace.

The view from the bench where I sit to find peace

My peaceful spot at sunset

The next step in my growth is going to be to find a way to be in that place of peace when I am back in California, after all I can’t walk down to my bench on the beach. Maybe I can find it somewhere along the shores of the Pacific. Maybe it will just remain in my mind and I’ll be able to access it through meditation. I know I’ll find a way to replicate the feeling of peace and live in it even when I’m not on my island. This knowledge gives me hope and hope is what keeps me moving forward.

Thank you for reading, One Love.

How trauma affects my chronic pain

As a trauma survivor, my mind is always in survival mode. My protection mechanisms are always activated. Ready to fight or run or do whatever it takes to survive. The problem with this is that it isn’t always necessary. Not every situation I’m in requires me to be on alert. The damage done to my nervous system by abuse creates that need as I can’t be trusted to react appropriately when and if the situation presents itself.

Living in survival mode is mentally exhausting. It’s why when I finally go out in a public place to a party or gathering or even just grocery shopping, I’m constantly planning my escape back to a safe place. I could be out for only a couple of hours but I will feel exhausted. Drained as if I spent days without sleep. The mind can only tolerate so much, mine takes on double duty.

Living with chronic physical pain

I have previously written about the bone disease I have and the chronic pain I suffer from because of it. I used to be able to handle that physical pain, I could push it aside, work around it or just go right through it. In time it became subconscious. I would know the pain was there but my mind would put it in the proper place so that I could get through my days.

I didn’t realize that my physical pain and my trauma protections would end up battling each other for bandwidth in my brain. When I started to really work on my trauma and truly understand the way my mind processes everything I noticed that it seemed like my physical pain was getting worse.

It took me some time to realize it wasn’t getting worse, my brain was just not dealing with it as well anymore. I was asking so much of my mind to help me through my trauma recovery that it had to push out the pain management that was always ongoing in the back of my mind.

This has been a very hard and confusing part of the process for me to deal with. I have never let my physical pain stop me from doing anything. If it was going to be hard from a pain perspective it pushed me to want to do it even more. I didn’t realize that pushing through the pain was made significantly easier because my mind was doing a lot of the work for me, behind the scenes.

It has been very frustrating and humbling to accept that I can’t physically do many things that I love to do anymore. I used to love to hike in the hills around my home, I looked forward to weekend hikes. I loved going to Lake Tahoe and exploring on foot or walking for hours around an old European town. These things always cause more pain but I could tolerate it and it was always well worth the experience.

Now I simply have to not do these things. Notice I didn’t say I can’t do these things. I still refuse to accept I can’t do something, instead I have to choose not to do them. I’m sure that a big part of the decline physically is my age although I feel stronger at 48 that I ever have.

An X-ray of the lower part of my left leg. You can see deformations in the bone throughout as well as the obvious plate and screws holding it together.

The bone disease I have, echondromatosis (described in this previous post https://wp.me/p4rm8Q-1o ) is the main reason for the decline. I’ve always known that as I got older it would become more of a burden. It came on quickly though. Coupled with the fact that I am as active as I am in the gym, I never would have thought that it would be this soon. Having to already experience such a steep decline in my ability to do things without risking injury and without so much pain is very hard to accept.

I no longer hike and that wears on me. It really was something I loved to do and I have had to accept that it is a part of my past. I can still take walks around old cities but I have to bring a cane with me and use it at the first sign that I’ve done too much. If I know I’m going to spend a day on my feet, I have to plan out my days before and after. Before, I need to rest up as if I am saving steps for the day on my feet. And after because I will need time to recover from that day. I have to avoid surfaces like cobblestone or grassy fields, dirt or anything uneven.

It’s those days when it is so blatantly obvious that my mind just isn’t processing the pain the way it used to. If I would feel discomfort before, now I feel real pain. I feel it deep in the bone at times and it scares me. Sometimes I worry that I’ve fractured the bone. This can happen to me a lot easier than it can with someone that doesn’t have this disease.

Isolation brought on by pain

It isn’t only the pain that is a challenge now. Having to restrict myself from doing things that I would normally do has contributed to my isolation. I have to think through every request I get from someone to do something. If it means I will have to stand or walk too much, I generally choose to stay home.

Accepting that it’s ok to rest has been hard on me too. I have never wanted to hinder other people’s experiences because of what I may need to do to protect myself. I have always just sucked it up if I felt like I need to sit down or rest because no one else I was with needed to rest. It was hard to ask people to alter the way that they experience something because I wasn’t capable of doing so at their same level.

I still struggle with that. There are some people in my life who understand. They actively look to suggest resting if they notice I may need to and I appreciate that, it is very helpful. Other times though I will choose not to do things that I want to do because I don’t want to be a burden. The options are asking to rest or simply dealing with the pain which will be damaging. When the pain builds its makes me irritable and on edge. I fear others having to deal with that, as it’s not fair to them.

Isolation has become a big challenge for me in the past couple of years. I’ve been doing it much longer than that, only recently have I identified it as a problem and actively worked on it. It’s more of a challenge now because of the worsening pain I suffer from makes the problem more acute. At times having to not do something I want to do causes me sadness and hopelessness and that leads to the risk of falling back into depression. Even just writing this now has me feeling overwhelmed. It’s hard to accept that this isn’t going to get better with time.

A new painful injury

To compound my problem with pain, in 2018 I suffered a herniated disk in my neck between C6 and C7. One morning while I was driving to the gym I felt I slight pop in my neck. Shortly after, there was shooting pain down my left arm. Over the course of the next hour my arm went completely numb and I lost partial use of it. Instead of the gym I went to the ER.

MRI of my neck showing the herniation between the C6 and C7 vertebrae in 2018

I wrote about that whole ordeal once before here ( https://wp.me/p4rm8Q-at ) it was the most trying six weeks of my life. The never ending nerve pain was bad enough. The horrible cocktail of drugs designed to help me instead made everything significantly worse. Dark, dark days. I finally had risky surgery on my spine to fix the herniated disk. Traditionally they would go in through my throat and fix the herniation and then fuse the disk. I chose to go a different route though, I didn’t want to have my neck fused.

The surgery I chose was risky because of the proximity to the spinal column. The doctor had only performed it a handful of times. During at least one surgery the spinal column was nicked causing an entirely new set of problems. I knew the risk but I needed it taken care of, I had lived six weeks in absolute hell.

Surgery was successful and the pain was gone, for the time being. I slowly recovered from the surgery and got back to a relatively normal life after about six months. The lasting result is chronic fatigue in my neck and pain that is worse as each day unfolds. I always compare it to my head being to heavy for my neck to support if I’m out and about all day without laying down to rest it.

A long, frightening night at the airport in Portugal

The risk of herniation isn’t gone, just this last April it happened again.  I was in London with my brother and his family and started to feel pain building in my neck, in the same place. Within a day I had that same horrible nerve pain in my neck and this time in my right shoulder. 

The next day I had to fly back to California after spending a night in the airport in Portugal. If you haven’t experienced this type of nerve pain I really don’t know how to describe it adequately. It’s persistent, relentless and takes all the mental strength you have to persevere through every minute. During the night at the airport I lost feeling in my right arm and the fine motor skills in my right hand. It was a very long night.

As part of the boarding process I had to complete a form that required a few check marks and a signature. It’s pretty unsettling to hold a pen in the hand that you’ve been writing with your whole life and not be able to sign your name. I stared at the pen and at my hand, willing them to move and I simply could not do it. I ended up having to sign it left handed.

Before we took off I emailed my doctor in California and told him what was happening and where I was. When I landed I found that he ordered a round of prednisone to reduce the swelling in my spine that was pinching the nerve. Within two days the awful pain was gone. Slowly, over a couple of months I regained full use of my hand and fingers. What I learned from this episode was just how susceptible I am to this type of injury reoccurring.

The residual pain in my neck is also chronic now and just another issue for my already taxed mind to contend with. My sincere hope is that as I improve my mental health my mind will relax from always being in survival mode and will be able to handle the chronic pain again on some level. As I said earlier, living with non stop pain is exhausting, frustrating and mentally damaging. In my case the added stress of trauma recovery is sometimes just too much to handle.

Thank you for reading. Writing is healing. One Love

How a narcissist nearly derailed my healing

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“When a toxic person can no longer control you, they will try to control how others see you. The misinformation will feel unfair, but stay above it, trusting that other people will eventually see the truth just like you did.” -Dr Jill Blakeway

One of the worst attributes of a narcissist is when they manipulate another person into being what they need from them in order to feel whole. Like a predator, they seek out vulnerability to exploit because they are cowards.

They may need friendship or companionship It could be something as insidious as wanting their victim’s life (think Single white Female). Entitlement is a big part of narcissism and it fuels their actions.

When the narcissist thinks that they deserve something that their target has but isn’t worthy of, they try to take it. They will slowly and meticulously tear down their victim while making them think that they are doing the opposite. This creates a sense of beholdeness. All the while they are positioning themself to eventually take whatever it is that they want, what they believe they deserve more than their victim does.

This could be a job, an item like a car, respect or praise. It could be their victim’s spouse or even their children. It’s sick, twisted and frightening.

How narcissism can affect your healing

I want to share an example of how this can manifest in a survivor’s life and how we must look out for it. It’s hard enough to identify and react to when we live with healthy boundaries. Imagine how easy it would be for a narcissist to insert themself into a survivor’s life who has not yet learned how to protect themself.

When you consider trusting people, as an adult most of us have a good sense of trustworthiness. Most victims of past abuse are learning how to trust again if they’ll ever even be able to. The narcissist sees this as an opportunity. An opportunity to go overboard to gain the trust no one else can get from the survivor in order to fulfill their own twisted needs and desires, to make the victim feel beholden to them.

The narcissist will target a vulnerable person to ensure success and manipulate their mind through emotions like guilt.  It’s predatory and controlling and it sets victims back years if not forever. Narcissistic manipulation is very hard to spot when you don’t know what to look for or if you have no reason to look for it. Generally, it feels like it’s too late when you finally start to realize that something is wrong.

Learning to trust is key

As a victim of abuse whether you are actively working through your trauma or haven’t yet been able to face it, trust is and will be a big part of your work. Likely, in some form your trust was broken. It could be trust in a person or a group, trust in a relationship or trust in mankind in general. On some level your trust was broken and you will be seeking to find a way to feel secure in trusting again.

In my case my trust was shattered by a person, a priest. As I worked through my trauma I found that my trust in the Church itself was broken too as was my trust in God and religion. I’ve found over time that my mistrust in God, the Church and religion was misplaced. It has been “easier” to reconcile my differences with them than it has been to find safety in trusting human beings again.

I started understanding how my trust being broken had manifested in my life. Quickly I realized that I was going to be battling myself in the process quite a bit. Finding no peace in not trusting people, I really wanted to trust. To be able to trust again I knew would take time and learned tools. I longed for the comfort of living in a world where I know who is bad and who is good like I did before, regardless of how naive that is.

I wanted to believe that if I let someone into my life, that I was a good enough judge of character to be able to trust that their intentions were pure. The term boundaries in relation to mental health was still not something I was aware of at that point. If I were trusting someone, it was blind trust and wasn’t healthy for me because I was very vulnerable.

If I let the wrong person or people in at that point it could have had devastating consequences. I had unknowingly let a narcissist in years earlier. It did have just those consequences, but not for a very long time. The manipulation was slow and meticulous. It lasted so long that even when red flags surfaced, I easily dismissed them for a couple of reasons.

Healthy boundaries protect from manipulation

Over time I had progressed slowly in my healing and began to understand the importance of healthy boundaries. I had started to try to learn how to use them in my life. Red flags presented by someone close to me could easily be dismissed as likely hyper-vigilance on my part because this person had helped me get where I was. I didn’t believe they could have bad intentions. I thought I must just be projecting what I’m learning or still trying to find a comfortable place of understanding bad behavior vs good.

The narcissist had me convinced of their goodness. I was learning boundaries for other people, not someone so close to me. That is a product of my vulnerability and the insidious manipulation that began during those most vulnerable years.

Time passed and my strength increased. I learned to trust myself which is the key to trusting others. I felt like I had a good grip on good vs bad and right vs wrong. I was understanding how to identify red flags and more importantly, how to react to them.

Betrayal from the narcissist

As I said, the narcissist was in my life already in the form of a person who supported me. Someone who manipulated themself into my friends group and my family. Someone who was always there by my side and quite frankly probably did care about me, as much as they could. The issue was that they are sick and incapable of real, true emotion. Ultimately a narcissist cares only truly about themself. They will use anyone they can to improve their perception of themself and the perception that others have of them.

I have had to find a way to learn to trust myself all over again. This person’s actions set me back years in my therapy. All the work I had done to get to where I was at that point in my life disappeared. I was feeling so strong and confident and then reality hit me. Someone that close to me, who I trusted implicitly, was in fact the last person I should be trusting. It was truly devastating.

It crushed me and it led to some of my darkest hours. I was back to square one only this time it was worse. This time I had to not only learn how to trust myself again. Now I had to work through believing I had found that ability to trust myself and others once before, only to find out I was horribly wrong.

The price I’ve paid

I have lost a lot because of this. Narcissists will continue to try to manipulate you even when you no longer allow it. Without seeking help, they only know how to right themselves one way, control. I’ve lost significant relationships due to this person’s shifted focus of undermining me and my mental health through misinformation. They maintain a semblance of control of me in their mind in order to get what they always wanted; my life and the things I had that they believed they were entitled to.

I’ve learned that I can’t wade into those waters. I can’t win by trying to disprove what is happening or by pleading my case. They will, one day, slip up again and will be exposed for what they truly are.

For my part, I understand the people being lied to and what they are dealing with. I hold nothing but pure love and affection for them in my heart. Had I tried to stop the continued manipulation I would have fallen further into a mentally unhealthy place. I would not have been able to continue to grow and evolve and understand how to trust. I don’t know if I would have found the strength that I have today.

As survivors of abuse we must look out for one another and help one another. When I write, my focus is on telling my truth with the hope that others with similar truths see that they are not alone and can begin to rise out of their own darkness. I also feel responsible to warn those who may read my posts of some of the dangers they could encounter on their journey to a healthy mind. Learning to trust will be a big part of healing. It’s important to learn to actively trust, passive trust can leave you vulnerable to being a victim again.

Thank you for reading. Writing is healing. One Love.

How narcissism almost derailed my healing

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

“When a toxic person can no longer control you, they will try to control how others see you. The misinformation will feel unfair, but stay above it, trusting that other people will eventually see the truth just like you did.” -Dr Jill Blakeway

One of the worst attributes of a narcissist is when they manipulate another person or people into being what they need from them in order to feel whole. Like a predator, they seek out vulnerability to exploit because they are cowards.

They may need friendship, companionship or something as insidious as wanting their victim’s life (think Single white Female), whatever they have zeroed in on that they believe they’re entitled to.

When the narcissist thinks that they deserve something that their target has but isn’t worthy of, they try to take it. They will slowly and meticulously tear down their victim while making them think that they are doing the opposite, creating a sense of beholdeness. All the while they are positioning themself to eventually take whatever it is that they want, what they believe they deserve more than their victim does.

This could be a job, an item like a car, respect or praise. It could be their victim’s spouse or even their children. It’s sick, twisted and frightening.

I want to share an example of how this can manifest in a survivor’s life and how we must look out for it. It’s hard enough to identify and react to when we live with healthy boundaries but imagine how easy it would be for a narcissist to insert themself into a survivor’s life who has not yet learned how to protect themself.

When you consider trusting people, as an adult most of us have a good sense of trustworthiness. Most victims of past abuse do not, most are learning how to trust again if they’ll ever even be able to. The narcissist sees this as an opportunity. An opportunity to go overboard to gain the trust no one else can get from the survivor in order to fulfill their own twisted needs and desires, to make the victim feel beholden to them.

The narcissist will target a vulnerable person to ensure success and manipulate their mind through emotions like guilt.  It’s predatory and controlling and it sets victims back years if not forever. Narcissistic manipulation is very hard to spot when you don’t know what to look for or if you have no reason to look for it. Generally, it feels like it’s too late when you finally start to realize that something is wrong.

As a victim of abuse whether you are actively working through your trauma or haven’t yet been able to face it, trust is and will be a big part of your work. Likely, in some form your trust was broken. It could be trust in a person or a group, trust in a relationship or trust in mankind in general. On some level your trust was broken and you will be seeking to find a way to feel secure in trusting again.

In my case my trust was shattered by a person, a priest. As I worked through my trauma I found that my trust in the Church itself was broken too as was my trust in God and religion. I’ve found over time, that for me my mistrust in God, the Church and religion was misplaced and it has been “easier” to reconcile my differences with them than it has been to find safety in trusting human beings again.

Once I started working through how my trust being broken had manifested in my life I realized quickly that I was going to be battling myself in the process quite a bit. I wanted to trust, I wasn’t finding peace in not trusting people. While I knew that it would take time and learned tools to be able to trust again, I really wanted the comfort of living in a world where I knew who was bad and who was good like I used to think I did, regardless of how naive that is.

I wanted to believe that if I let someone into my life, that I was a good enough judge of character to be able to trust that their intentions were pure. I still had never even heard the term boundaries in relation to mental health at that point and so if I were trusting someone, it was blind trust and was not healthy for me because I was very vulnerable.

If I let the wrong person or people in at that point it could have had devastating consequences. I had unknowingly let a narcissist in years earlier and that is what ended up happening and it did have just those consequences, but not for a very long time. The manipulation was slow and meticulous and lasted so long that even when red flags surfaced, I easily dismissed them for a couple of reasons.

Over time I had progressed slowly in my healing and began to understand the importance of healthy boundaries and had started to try to learn how to use them. Red flags presented by someone close to me were easily dismissed as likely hyper-vigilance on my part because this person had helped me get where I was. I didn’t believe they could have bad intentions. I thought I must just be projecting what I’m learning or still trying to find a comfortable place of understanding bad behavior vs good.

The narcissist had me convinced of their goodness, enough time had already passed in our friendship that any red flag could be laughed off because I was learning boundaries for other people, not someone so close to me. That is a product of the vulnerability of where I started and the insidious manipulation that began during those most vulnerable years.

Time passed and my strength increased. I learned to trust myself which is the key to trusting others. I felt like I had a good grip on good vs bad and right vs wrong. I was understanding how to identify red flags and more importantly, how to react to them.

As I said, the narcissist was in my life already in the form of a person who supported me. Someone who manipulated themself into my friends group and my family. Someone who was always there, always by my side and quite frankly probably did care about me, as much as they could. The issue was that they are sick and incapable of real, true emotion. Ultimately a narcissist cares only truly about themself and will use anyone they can to improve their perception of themself as well as the perception that others have of them.

I have had to find a way to learn to trust myself all over again. This person’s actions set me back years in my therapy. All the work I had done to get to where I was at that point in my life was gone. I was feeling so strong and confident and then the reality that someone that close to me, who I trusted implicitly, was in fact the last person I should be trusting was truly devastating.

It crushed me and it led to some of my darkest hours. I was back to square one only this time it was worse. This time I had to not only learn how to trust myself again, but now I had to work through believing I had found that ability to trust myself and others once before, only to find out I was horribly wrong.

I have lost a lot because of this. Narcissists will continue to try to manipulate you even when you no longer allow it. Without seeking help, they only know how to right themselves one way, control. I’ve lost significant relationships due to this person’s shifted focus of undermining me and my mental health through misinformation, maintaining a semblance of control of me in their mind in order to get what they always wanted; my life and the things I had that they believed they were entitled to.

I’ve learned that I can’t wade into those waters. I can’t win by trying to disprove what is happening or by pleading my case. They will, one day, slip up again and will be seen for what they truly are.

For my part, I understand the people being lied to and what they are dealing with and hold nothing but pure love and affection for them in my heart. Had I tried to stop the continued manipulation I would have fallen further into a mentally unhealthy place. I would not have been able to continue to grow and evolve and understand how to trust. I don’t know if I would have found the strength that I have today.

As survivors of abuse we must look out for one another and help one another. When I write, my focus is on telling my truth with the hope that others with similar truths see that they are not alone and can begin to rise out of their own darkness. I’ve realized that I also feel responsible to warn those who may read my posts of some of the dangers they could encounter along the way on their journey to a healthy mind. Learning to trust will be a big part of healing. It’s important to learn to actively trust, passive trust may leave you open to being victimized again.

Thank you for reading. Writing is healing. One Love.

Mindfulness from autopilot

I find that on most days I’m just floating through time without mindfulness. No real connection to what I’m doing or where I am, no real emotions attached to any part of my life. Fo the longest time I’ve called that living in my routine, my comfort zone, my peace. I’ve had a pretty good idea why I do this. Likely it’s to avoid having to deeply consider aspects of the day because that thought is overwhelming and anxiety inducing.

Living in the moment is scary, it means that I can’t control what happens next. It could be nothing, which would be fine but it could be something that would cause me to have to act. This concerns me. I don’t trust that I will act appropriately so I hide behind my routine.

I use the routine as justification to just float through the day. It gives me comfort and peace of mind that I can deal with life because I’m in control of it. Until I realized what was happening I was perfectly happy in this place. I survived each day so I felt I was doing great. Surviving however, is not how I want to live. I want the highs of happiness. In order to experience those highs, I’m willing to also deal with the lows of the bad times. I don’t want to live on autopilot anymore so I’m focused on finding my way past it.

Dissociation

Originally, before I started to accept my mental health challenges, my mind dissociated in order to protect me. I have full on hours, days and weeks in my past where my memory is foggy. I know I lived through that time, I know I was there but I have no direct memory of it. Almost like I watched it as opposed to living it or was told about it. As I’ve progressed in my journey that’s been a hard reality to come to terms with. It was and still is to a certain extent, very confusing. Understanding how the mind protects you when you can’t protect yourself helps to make sense of it.

Dissociation is in my past. I can’t think of any recent examples of experiencing this as I have begun to actively take part in my healing process and take back control of my life little by little. I liken it to my mind doing what it had to do in order for me to survive until I was strong enough to do the necessary work and begin to actively heal myself.

Autopilot running my life

Instead of dissociating, today I live most days on autopilot. As I said earlier, I had always called it my routine. While what I was experiencing was autopilot in essence, I thought it was something I was actively doing. I didn’t realize the control my mind had on it. I thought my routine just put me in a comfort zone where I could get through each day with as little stress as possible. Only recently did I realize it was a process that my mind was actively doing for me in order to protect me.

I started to wonder what exactly autopilot was protecting me from and why. Once I realized that it was a subconscious way of my mind to make basic every day decisions with minimal to no input from me in order to avoid overloading my mind and in effect limit stress, it made perfect sense. It was the same thing that I thought I was in control of with establishing routines.

Today, if something comes up in my life that is outside of my routine I’ll push back against it. It might be something good or something I want to experience. However if it requires added thought it’s too much to think about and so I’ll avoid it. Generally, as time passes I’ll find a way to be ok with it and work it into my routine but initially I can’t even consider it. If it’s a day trip somewhere interesting for example, eventually I’ll find a day for it. If it’s a learning opportunity like a class or a conversation, I’ll find a time to add it to my routine. These would only be temporary additions and when they’re over I will always feel a great sense of relief to return to my basic routine.

Autopilot prevents me from overthinking. For example, if I’m going to take the bus to the gym every day and I’ve found a time when I can do that and feel safe about the number of people on the bus or the number of people at the gym, then that is the time that I need to do it every day. To change the time will change the possibilities and take me out of autopilot and that’s overwhelming so I prefer to sit on the couch and not go anywhere. I’m at a point in my healing process where I can appreciate the comfort of autopilot but I want more from life. I want to move from autopilot to mindfulness.

As I sit here and write this, the thought of living a mindful life is very appealing. It’s my goal, but it’s also scary. The fear comes from moving my mind out of the comfort of autopilot and trusting that I can handle what life throws at me. My mind, as that of a trauma victim lives in survival mode. It protects me from additional traumas as if new trauma is around every corner.

Moving from autopilot to mindfulness

I know that the world holds many good things for me if I can open my mind up to being able to accept that. My mind, for its part works in extremes. It protects me from all situations because at least that mitigates the risk of being re-traumatized. This is not realistic as most bad things that come along each day can be easily dealt with and moved on from. Not every bad experience will have long term, lasting effects but that is what my mind is protecting me from.

Learning how to live with healthy boundaries is the first step toward being able to handle the bad things that may come my way. A part of developing those boundaries is living mindfully, understanding that the past is the past, it has happened. The future is the future, it will happen. The present is now and now is the only part of my life that is active. Now is where I want to live.

Clearly it’s acceptable to remember the past. Past experiences are how we learn what we like and don’t like and how we know not to make the same mistakes twice. Similarly, of course we need to consider the future. We need to make plans and be prepared for things that are coming up. We can’t live in a place of endless possibilities that the uncertainty of the future brings though.

Mindfulness is understanding your present state. Feeling the feeling, acknowledging the emotions and living the current experiences. For someone like me that’s scary. With time and work on my part it’s becoming less so but it is scary to consider living completely in the moment. The “what ifs” pop up. What if it’s too much? What if it hurts? What if I don’t know how to react or what to do? The what ifs lessen over time when you learn to live within healthy boundaries, to live within your capabilities.

Being aware of who you are and what you are capable of in any given moment is freedom. This state of mind takes a lot work and a lot of time. While I’m certainly not there, I’m significantly closer to being there than I’ve ever been. My biggest fear when considering mindfulness is being overwhelmed. I find so much comfort in autopilot that I’m reluctant to move out of it. I know that if I want my life back, that’s what I need to do.

Many days I feel like I can just live happily on autopilot for the rest of my life. It protects me from anxiety when nothing else ever has. I know I won’t be ready to move past living on autopilot until I’m comfortable with the fact that as a part of being in that place, I will have healthy tools to help me when I’m overwhelmed. I won’t have to shut down or hide from the world in order to feel peace.

Today I feel moments of mindfulness and they are exciting. It feels like confidence, like I’m capable of anything. They are fleeting momemts however and I quickly revert back to autopilot. The exciting part is that those moments are creeping into my conscious self more frequently. It’s almost as if my mind is giving me hints and reminders of what I’m working toward. Like I’m being told that I’m capable of mindfulness and that I will love the peace it brings, so don’t give up.

Meditation helps

When I’m actively able to work on mindfulness I find it in meditation. When I start my day out with meditation, those minutes of peace are invigorating. Sometimes they translate deep into my day. Sometimes I can actively feel each moment, live each decision, decisions as simple as my next step, my next breath or my next thought. It slows my world down and everything seems possible.

Most of the time if I think to meditate, mindfulness only lasts as long as I’m sitting in that place of peace. Once I’m finished and emerge to start the day, I lose my focus and just go on autopilot again. It isn’t discouraging necessarily because I view it as part of the process. I know I should engage in mediation more often but, as fate would have it, autopilot doesn’t include meditation for me so most days I don’t think to step outside of my routine and actively attach myself to my mind.

I believe that as time passes, if I don’t give up on the goal of living a mindful life, eventually meditation will become part of my autopilot and as it does, slowly autopilot will transition into mindfulness and that’s what I’m working toward. Living a life in the moment, in peace of mind and maintaining that peace throughout each day.

I get frustrated at times and I have to accept that nothing will ever be perfect. Living an imperfect mindful life is much more fulfilling that any alternative however, and so I’ll always strive to achieve it and once I have, I’ll strive to maintain it.

Writing is healing, One Love.

From victim to advocate.

Photo by Miguel R Llull

As I have said in previous posts, I was very involved in the Church as a kid. It was, in many ways a badge of honor. I was an altar boy at Good Shepherd parish in Pacifica along with most of my male friends, where we went to school. I was involved in the youth group at St Peters parish in Pacifica and I really enjoyed the community aspect of the Church. Today I am finding my way back to an active life in the Church. I want to transition from a victim to an advocate.

I can’t say that I ever had thoughts of a life serving the Church. I don’t remember ever aspiring to be a priest or other member of the clergy. In hindsight, I suppose that there may have come a time in my life when I might have chosen to serve in some capacity but it was never a long term goal. I wasn’t opposed to it, I just don’t ever remember considering where my involvement as a youth could potentially take me.

Drifting away from the Church

I started drifting away from the Church actively around the time that I was being abused by our priest. at the time I didn’t think anything of it, I was growing up and starting to make my way in life and so moving on never seemed like there was a larger reason for it other than I was changing.

Now that I have been working through what my abuse means to my relationship with the Church, it feels like a good time to define where it fits in my life and where I fit in it. I know first hand that the clergy abuse scandal that is ongoing has created a chasm between the church and the way that I grew up in it, and rightfully so. I know that parents are hesitant to allow their children to be involved in youth groups or in ministry and I cannot blame them.

Children likely are uninterested on their own because of what they may have heard or read or been told about the widespread abuses of power enabling priests and other members of the church to violate trust and scar young people for life. All of this is a reasonable response to what has been well documented and what is still happening.

Ruined lives and ruined faith

The worst part of the abuse scandal is the ruined lives. The promise that young people hold within themselves is immense and these predators have stolen that from so many. It is sad, tragic, devastating and grotesque. Real lives thrown off course for good by monsters interested in only satisfying their own sick desires. Families torn apart by guilt and betrayal and the burdens they must work through and try to make peace with. It is horrific, unfair and leaves permeant scars in its wake.

I think it is safe to say that for me that is where the true awfulness of the overall situation is, in the lives ruined. Lives permanently set off course trying to find a place in the world that makes sense. It has taken me 18 years to find that place and as much as I still suffer and as hard as life is day to day I am excited about the opportunity that lies before me.

How I can help

I am one of many, far too many. That is certainly not a badge of honor to wear but it does put me in a relatively unique position to make a difference, it gives me a voice. I want to help ensure that this ends. I am not naive and so I don’t believe that abuse can be eradicated completely in any large organization but the Church in particular needs this to end.

The Church partially relies on youth development to replace the people moving on from stellar careers serving Christ, communities and the overall administration of the word of God. Forever, the backfill has included in large part, people like me. People who grew up in the Church, were active from a young age and ultimately pledged a life of service. This scandal has put that in jeopardy. As I mentioned earlier parents are not as willing to allow their children to be involved in Church activities and children aren’t as willing to learn about vocations that may eventually lead to a life of service to the Church.

Photo by Miguel R Llull

The Church needs generational healing. The long term affects of the scandal have the potential to be devastating to its future. As I have written previously, I was victimized, in part, because of my faith. My faith is why I was there and why I was a target. But when I needed my faith the most I had already shunned it as part of my pain and suffering.

It has only been since I realized how badly I needed it and worked to find a way to get faith back in my life that I have been able to make huge strides in my healing. Faith is very important to me and I want everyone who desires faith in their lives to experience its immense power.

I want to use my platform to not only help protect others from suffering as I have and as so many others have and to help guide those who have suffered, through their healing but I also want to help people feel safe being involved in the Church again.

I want to work to ensure that new waves of young Catholics feel safe as members of the Church and in participating in the ministry. I want to help them feel comfortable interacting with members of the Church in order to learn more deeply about the teachings and the potential for a lifetime of service. I want to help alleviate the fears of the parents and guardians in allowing their children to be more involved in the Church.

I fear that if this is not done we will lose an entire generation of Catholics when we in fact have an opportunity for that same generation to help usher in a safer and better era of Catholicism.

From victim to advocate. Helping others through my suffering.

Photo by Miguel R Llull

As I have said in previous posts, I was very involved in the Church as a kid. It was, in many ways a badge of honor. I was an altar boy at Good Shepherd parish in Pacifica along with most of my male friends, where we went to school. I was involved in the youth group at St Peters parish in Pacifica and I really enjoyed the community aspect of the Church.

I can’t say that I ever had thoughts of a life serving the Church. I don’t remember ever aspiring to be a priest or other member of the clergy. I suppose, in hindsight, that there may have come a time in my life when I might have chosen to serve in some capacity but it was never a long term goal. I wasn’t opposed to it, I just don’t ever remember considering where my involvement as a youth could potentially take me.

I started drifting away from the Church actively around the time that I was being abused by our priest. I didn’t think anything of it, I was growing up and starting to make my way in life and so moving on never seemed like there was a larger reason for it other than I was changing.

Now that I have been working through what my abuse means to my relationship with the Church, it feels like a good time to define where it fits in my life and where I fit in it. I know first hand that the clergy abuse scandal that is ongoing has created a chasm between the church and the way that I grew up in it, and rightfully so. I know that parents are hesitant to allow their children to be involved in youth groups or in ministry and I cannot blame them.

Children likely are uninterested on their own because of what they may have heard or read or been told about the widespread abuses of power enabling priests and other members of the church to violate trust and scar young people for life. All of this is a reasonable response to what has been well documented and what is still happening.

The worst part of the abuse scandal is the ruined lives. The promise that young people hold within themselves is immense and these predators have stolen that from so many. It is sad, tragic, devastating and grotesque. Real lives thrown off course for good by monsters interested in only satisfying their own sick desires. Families torn apart by guilt and betrayal and the burdens they must work through and try to make peace with. It is horrific, unfair and leaves permeant scars in its wake.

I think it is safe to say that for me that is where the true awfulness of the overall situation is, in the lives ruined. Lives permanently set off course trying to find a place in the world that makes sense. It has taken me 18 years to find that place and as much as I still suffer and as hard as life is day to day I am excited about the opportunity that lies before me.

I am one of many, far too many. That is certainly not a badge of honor to wear but it does put me in a relatively unique position to make a difference, it gives me a voice. I want to help ensure that this ends. I am not naive and so I don’t believe that abuse can be eradicated completely in any large organization but the Church in particular needs this to end.

The Church partially relies on youth development to replace the people moving on from stellar careers serving Christ, communities and the overall administration of the word of God. Forever, the backfill has included in large part, people like me. People who grew up in the Church, were active from a young age and ultimately pledged a life of service. This scandal has put that in jeopardy. As I mentioned earlier parents are not as willing to allow their children to be involved in Church activities and children aren’t as willing to learn about vocations that may eventually lead to a life of service to the Church.

Photo by Felipe Balduino on Pexels.com

The Church needs generational healing. The long term affects of the scandal have the potential to be devastating to its future. As I have written previously, I was victimized, in part, because of my faith. My faith is why I was there and why I was a target. But when I needed my faith the most I had already shunned it as part of my pain and suffering.

It has only been since I realized how badly I needed it and worked to find a way to get faith back in my life that I have been able to make huge strides in my healing. Faith is very important to me and I want everyone who desires faith in their lives to experience its immense power.

I want to use my platform to not only help protect others from suffering as I have and as so many others have and to help guide those who have suffered, through their healing but I also want to help people feel safe being involved in the Church again.

I want to work to ensure that new waves of young Catholics feel safe as members of the Church and in participating in the ministry. I want to help them feel comfortable interacting with members of the Church in order to learn more deeply about the teachings and the potential for a lifetime of service. I want to help alleviate the fears of the parents and guardians in allowing their children to be more involved in the Church.

I fear that if this is not done we will lose an entire generation of Catholics when we in fact have an opportunity for that same generation to help usher in a safer and better era of Catholicism.

How my abuse affects my life and relationships today

Before I knew what was hidden away in my mind I felt like I was living a pretty good life. Aside from my bone disease, which I believed I was overcoming, I was happy, relatively successful and I absolutely loved social situations.

Bars, parties, weddings etc, the more people the better for me. I easily fit in with any crowd and I thrived off interacting with people. I had a good job, I had a wife and kids, I had many friends who I actively spent time with and I loved going new places and experiencing new things.

I never stressed too much about social settings. I never really worried about who would be there or who I might have to talk to. I didn’t worry whether or not I could adapt to a conversation and I never felt like all eyes were on me whenever I walked into a room.

That has all changed. When I started to go through therapy to help me deal with the abuse I suffered at the hands of a predator priest I really didn’t understand why I was there, my head was still spinning. I went through many different doctors. I would start and then stop and hide from what was going on inside me and convince myself that I was fine. Then it would all come crashing down again and I would scramble to find another doctor to go to for help.

I never helped myself, I never actively participated in my therapy. I didn’t understand that it was necessary for me to do the work in order to benefit from the therapy. I was confused and scared and desperately needed the help I couldn’t ask for. Time and again I would get through the most recent crisis and then stop going to therapy because once things settled down I was “fine”.

I know now that the way my therapy legacy unfolded isn’t that abnormal. Suddenly one day I was thrown into this cauldron of terrifying emotions and feelings and memories and all I wanted was to find normalcy, I wanted my old life back. I wanted ignorance because ignorance is bliss.

Once I really understood the process and committed to doing my part I could quickly see the results, and I didn’t like them. It was painful reliving things that had happened to me. Confusing learning things about my life that I never realized. Damaging and difficult to accept that although there were many reasons for my past behavior it was still my behavior and I had to own it and not hide behind the curtain of trauma for mistakes I have made in my life or for the hurt I have caused people.

A huge part of the way PTSD manifested in me was not wanting to disappoint people. This led to lying in order to avoid accountability. I was pretending I was someone who I knew deep down I wasn’t but was trying to convince myself that I was. As time passed and I got deeper into therapy the confusion and hurt just got worse, so I stopped. Again.

I pretended everything was fine, I pretended that I wasn’t angry or that I wasn’t still avoiding accountability. I couldn’t understand all the emotions I was feeling but I didn’t really try to. Instead I buried it all the best I could. I went about my life in my job and with my family and I honestly felt like I was doing fine but of course I wasn’t.

I feel bad for those closest to me at that time because I know they saw the damage in me and wished that I would do something about it or at least acknowledge it. Not only wouldn’t I acknowledge it, I created an environment where no one felt comfortable bringing it up to me. So I stewed in my damage and those around me lived in fear that I would melt down, react to something inappropriately or just keep pretending that I was ok.

My marriage failed. I drifted away from some of my closest friends. I shut my family out. I still thought I was doing fine but my work was suffering, the friendships that remained were strained and I was heading to the depths of alcoholism and severe depression pretty quickly.

Once I had really hit rock bottom I was scared, nearly alone having pushed away just about everyone in my life and needed to commit to bettering myself, so I went back to therapy.

This time I found a doctor who was no nonsense. It was as if he knew me from the minute I walked in his office and I knew I couldn’t bullshit him. He was what I needed right then at that time in my life. I promised myself I would do the hard work, that I wouldn’t run when I was scared and I would face the challenges ahead of me directly. I haven’t been perfect but I certainly have been better at it than I ever was.

It has not been easy at all, however. Therapy has changed me significantly and not all for the better. For every bit of strength I have gained through the work I’ve done, there have been many more set backs. The kind of set backs that made me give up previously. Set backs like panic attacks, awful anxiety, isolation, fear of public settings, fear of stepping outside of my comfort zone and fear of hurting people.

All of these things are normal for me to be experiencing but they are very hard to accept. I still want to be the guy that loves going to parties and social gatherings without worrying about who will be there or what I will talk about. I long for the days when I didn’t overthink every little aspect of every little thing every day until I have to just crawl in to a hole and hide from the world. I wish I didn’t prefer to be alone, constantly looking forward to when I can get home, close the door behind me and sit on my couch, alone.

Loneliness is safe and so even though I don’t want to be alone, subconsciously I’m always seeking to isolate.

I have dealt with these issues for a few years now and they are all improving. I see real benefit to the work I’m doing. It would be naive to think that I could just go to therapy, talk about my problems and everything would be fixed, no pain, no bad days mixed in with the good. Just talk and then I’m fine. Of course it was always going to suck, I’m sure that is why I always ran away from it.

Today I feel that I am stronger than I have ever been, but I still revert to needing to be alone even when I want to spend time with someone or with people in a group. When I am strong enough to be in a social setting, even when I am feeling free and happy and enjoying myself, there is this constant voice in the back of my head saying I need to get out of there and be alone. Alone is safe, alone doesn’t create anxiety. It’s as if there is a finite amount of time allowed to me where I can be free and enjoy myself and when the clock strikes midnight I better get out of there, just like Cinderella.

I want to find the strength to date again and find someone to love, who loves me. I can’t trust myself yet however, that I won’t hurt them so I know the time is just not right still. I hope that as I continue to progress that eventually I won’t feel that way, that I will allow love into my life and trust myself that I can love back wholeheartedly.

I live comfortably and happily right now in a routine. I food shop twice a week, I go to the gym every day, I chat with or talk to my daughter multiple times a day and I sit and read or write or watch tv. That’s it, that is my comfort zone.

There are times when I feel strong enough to agree to plans with someone but rarely does that come with ease. If the plans are too far in the future I tend to overthink them and will make an excuse to cancel or postpone. If they are last minute plans I sometimes feel so overwhelmed by it that no matter how much I want to do it, I simply can’t. So I stick to my routine.

This keeps getting better slowly but surely. I am confident that in time and with continued work I will get to the point where I can enjoy people and plans again every time that I want to. I think the most significant thing that I have embraced recently is that I no longer feel I need to hide what I am going through. That is why I write this blog now and it is a huge source of strength and most importantly, I’m regaining control over my life.

In the past I would never tell anyone the truth about how I was feeling. If I made plans with someone, no matter how much I struggled to be able to meet my obligations I would either just do it and suffer terribly or lie and make an excuse why I can’t. Now I’m just honest. I tell people that I would love to do whatever it is and I tell them how I will likely react and that it is possible that I may have to back out because ultimately I need to protect my mental health.

That idea seemed counterintuitive to me at first. I felt like I was allowing my emotions or my PTSD to control my life still. Once I realized that it was actually the opposite it has been so freeing and such a source of strength to build from. It gives me hope and for the longest time hope simply did not exist in my life.

There is another comfort zone where I feel strong and in control. It’s this, writing, sharing my story. I hope to keep building on this and become a source of support and assistance for others dealing with past abuse. I hope to be involved in protecting the most vulnerable of society from predators through education, sharing experiences, helping to hold people accountable and making sure that the vulnerable ones know where their help is and that there is an abundance of it.

I feel zero anxiety in this. I believe that I was put here for this. I have always felt that I am a protector and that was why I became a cop when that was never something I wanted to do. My whole life, what I have been through, am going through and will continue to go through has all been to give me the tools necessary to help other people. While I am still a work in progress, the hard work I have done so far has prepared me to be ready for this new phase of my life, now.

One Love.

Enabling a predator priest: How my abuser was protected and ended up in my life.

_{Photo credit: Miguel R Llull}

This topic is huge and much more involved than even a well written blog post can hold. The book I’m writing is going to dive deeper into it but I wanted to try to shrink it down for the blog format.

I think that it is important to name names of the people who protected Fr Fred Lenczycki. Those who enabled him to continue to abuse and to give a timeline of how he ended up at St Peter’s parish in Pacifica, Ca after being accused of sexually molesting a young boy at St Isaac Jogues parish in Hinsdale, Illinois.

In order to determine the timeline of the events that led up to me meeting Lenczycki while I was in the hospital in October 1988 I have used documents provided by the Joliet Diocese in regards to Lenczycki for a law firm in Joliet, Illinois as well as a Chicago Tribune article and a press release by the Illinois Attorney General. Links to all of these documents are at the bottom of the page.

In a letter to Lenczycki dated June 2, 1980, Bishop Joseph Imesch of Joliet Diocese in Illinois informed him that he was being assigned as Associate Pastor at St Issac Jogues parish effective Thursday June 19, 1980. Before this assignment Lenczycki had been a member of faculty at St Charles Borromeo seminary in Romeoville, Illinois since June 16, 1975.

In December of 1984 a student at the St Issac Jogues parish school reported that Lenczycki had molested him. Lenczycki was initially moved to another parish by Imesch who was busy trying to find a place where Lenczycki could go with this allegation hanging over his head. Imesch eventually had Lenczycki sent to House of Affirmation (HOA) center in Montara California, an in house treatment facility.

Lenczycki was in the Montara facility beginning in mid March of 1985. It is unclear what his reason for being there was officially but the facility is not specifically for sexual predator priests but existed “to assist priests, brothers and sisters suffering emotional and/or vocational distress” as detailed in a letter written from the House of Affirmation director to Lenczycki on December 18, 1984 discussing his initial assessment for the program.

In a letter to Imesch dated May 13, 1985 Lenczycki was discussing the individual and group therapy he was having to do. He lamented that in the first group setting he had to admit to his small group why exactly he was there. He then went on to say “I’d thought, however, that once I had spoken to {redacted name of his therapist} and then explained myself to my group that I’d still be able to keep secret from the other residents my primary reason for coming to HOA, well I was wrong”.

It is pretty clear that while he was going through the motions prescribed to him in order to avoid accountability in Illinois he was hoping to not have to own his behavior and therefor would not benefit in any way from this therapy he had begun. The letters back and forth between Lenczycki and Imesch during his time at HOA in Montara are him lamenting his future, sharing his fears of being punished for his actions criminally and hoping to not be let go by Imesch while praising the bishop repeatedly for his support.

Imesch, for his part encouraged Lenczycki, calmed his fears about being dropped from the diocese telling him “what you have gone through and are going through will make you a more effective, compassionate minister. I might even go so far out on a limb as to say you will be one of the great ones” I think it is important to point out that Imesch knew the allegations against Lenczycki when he wrote this to him.

In a letter to Lenczycki on May 28, 1985 Imesch laments the purpose behind being forced to tell a group of strangers your “dark side”, clearly annoyed that Lenczycki was required to do this and dismissive of it. In the same letter Imesch tries to ease Lenczycki’s fears about legal trouble from his actions at St Issac Jogues by writing to him that “things have pretty much settled down and I wouldn’t expect any type of action from there”.

This is coming from the leader of the diocese who, instead of reassuring Lenczycki that things had “settled down” should have been leading the charge to protect his congregants and ensure that a full investigation into Lenczycki’s actions was conducted. Instead he hid Lenczycki hoping the entire problem would go away with time, protecting a violent sexual predator in the infancy of his crimes, enabling him to victimize again.

At the time that Imesch had Lenczycki tucked away at HOA in Montara Ca, there had been one allegation made against him. In the end, after Lenczycki was finally stopped and held accountable, he admitted to having molested 31 children, mostly in Illinois but several in California as well…I am one of those several. Imesch could have stopped this, he instead allowed it to continue and even enabled it.

On January 24, 1986 Imesch wrote a letter to Archbishop John Quinn of the diocese of San Francisco seeking a home for Lenczycki. In that letter he tells Quinn that Lenczycki has been in treatment at HOA in Montara for ten months and is nearing the end of his in house time there. He goes on to say that the HOA staff has required that Lenczycki remain in the area for outpatient counseling and group therapy. He tells Quinn that “personally I would recommend Fred (Lenczycki) very highly. He is an excellent priest, effective preacher and has a good rapport with people”.

Imesch then writes “If you would agree to accept him, I know that Fred would want to discuss openly the nature of his difficulties with his pastor…” as if the reason for Lenczycki being in therapy was due to some disagreement or other issue with the pastor at St Issac Jogues. He then goes on to offer to speak with Quinn on Lenczycki’s behalf.

On January 29, 1986 Quinn responded to Imesch that he would take up the matter of Lenczycki with the personnel board and get back to him. On March 10, 1986 Quinn wrote a letter to Imesch stating that Lenczycki would be at St Peter’s Parish in Pacifica until June 1987.

Once Lenczycki was at St Peter’s there is more correspondence between him and Imesch. On July 15, 1986 Imesch wrote a Memorandum for file about a conversation he had with Lenczycki on July 7. The memo states while he and Lenczycki had initially believed that he would return to the Joliet Diocese in June 1987 they both now agreed it would be too soon and Imesch stated that early in 1987 he would write a letter to Quinn asking for a one year extension at St Peter’s in Pacifica.

On July 30, 1986 Imesch received a letter from Bishop Roger Kaffer, then the auxiliary bishop of Joliet, in which Kaffer said that he was “relieved” to receive the memo Imesch had written on July 15. Kaffer clearly did not want Lenczycki back in Joliet stating “…with my own reflection, I would be much more at peace for Fred, the Church of Joliet, and for the cause of Christ if Fred did eventually find that San Francisco became his home”. He continued, “In my heart of hearts, I think the greatest kindness I could do him would be to help him stay as far away from the Church of Joliet as possible”.

Kaffer had previously served as the first rector of the St Charles Borromeo seminary in Romeoville, Illinois. Kaffer knew Lenczycki as their time at the seminary overlapped. The seminary is now closed and was sold to the neighboring Lewis University the summer of 2013

The fear here is clearly that Lenczycki’s return to Joliet would potentially bring up the past which they were comfortable with having “quieted down”. Lenczycki’s return could create embarrassment and accountability for the Church of Joliet, Imesch, Kaffer and many more, not to mention that Lenczycki could still face criminal charges, especially if his return brought up his actions from the past.

Most importantly, however, they did not want the possibility of him victimizing more children in their parish. They knew he was dangerous and that he would likely offend again given the opportunity so they decided that they did not want him there. Leaving him in Pacifica at St. Peter’s parish, my parish, was fine with them however. Out of sight, out of mind.

Lenczycki’s time was extended past June 1987 and we the parishioners of St Peter’s were thrilled about it. We obviously had no idea who he truly was or what he was capable of. Had Imesch and Kaffer not conspired to keep Lenczycki in California I would not be writing this blog or the book about what happened. I would have never met him that October day in 1988 at Kaiser in South San Francisco, he would not have been there.

Bishop Imesch is a main player in this incomprehensible cover up and is the person that could have stopped it all in the case of Lenczycki but instead chose to ignore the severity of the allegations. He used the power he held as the bishop of over 170 parishes to protect Lenczycki in any way he could.

His tone in the letters to Lenczycki that I have read is that of disdain for what Lenczycki was “going through” in treatment while reassuring him that he supported him and would not turn his back on him. Imesch issued an empty public apology in 2002 only after the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops adopted a zero tolerance policy on sexually abusive priests at a conference of Catholic Bishops in Dallas, Texas on June 14, 2002.

While this is all frustrating and maddening for me and while I wish every day that I had not been chosen to have to endure this and while I feel so much empathy for the other boys he victimized, I am glad today that I have this voice that I am going to use to help others; to help prevent the abuse, to help support the victims when they come forward and to help protect the most vulnerable of the congregations from predators.

As I said, the book will be much more in depth about all of this but I’m glad I have been able to fit the general outline of the circumstances in the blog form. I thank you for reading this and for your support throughout my journey.

I strive to make sure that the past transgressions of the Church are not ever forgotten, that everything possible is being done to protect people, children especially from predators and I vow to keep the circumstances of my abuse and the overall actions of the Church in the public for as long as I live through activism, advocacy and writing.

These are the reference links to the documents I used for research in this post. The first is the complete Lenczycki file from the Joliet Diocese of Illinois for Spesia and Ayers Attorneys at Law. The second is a Chicago Tribune article from April 7, 2013 written by Stacy St. Clair, David Hebinzmann and Christy Gutowski. The third is a press release from the office of the Illinois Attorney General dated March 19, 2008.

1. https://bit.ly/3yJYmK3
2. https://bit.ly/3CYqknU
3. https://bit.ly/3TkUk2B