| Ancient Memories | |||
| The sun beats down, | |||
| I'm overheated, | |||
| My body goes into automatic | |||
| ancient memories --- | "Even as small children we are trained not to listen to our bodies | ||
| of the heat of my body, | or trust our sensations." | ||
| the diarrhea, | Trust Your Body Rhythms Psychology Today, April, 1975 | ||
| the vomiting, | |||
| the pounding in my head, | |||
| I experience it all over again, | |||
| not knowing | |||
| that the memories in my body | |||
| are betraying me. | |||
| These days I can reassure myself | |||
| of my safety | |||
| and choose to enjoy the sun. | |||
| I suffered all these symptoms | |||
| every month of my period | |||
| in my teenage years, | |||
| Horrible, | the pounding | ||
| Hot, | in my | ||
| Cold, | head, | ||
| Sweats, | "We who were loved will never unlive that crippling fever." Malte Laurids Brigge | ||
| Diarrhea, | |||
| Vomiting, | |||
| Pacing the hallway floor | |||
| FRANTICALLY!!! | |||
| Back and Forth! | "Please!!! God!!! Let it be OVER!!!" begged 7 year old Cheryl | ||
| For about an hour, | |||
| the first day of my period, | |||
| every month. | "There were bizarre beginnings in old lands for the making of me." Dark Blood | ||
| The blood reminded me of the first rape of sodomy. | "The senses are not discreet." I Never Promised You a Rose Garden | ||
| The torture ended abruptly | |||
| every month | |||
| after an hour. | |||
| With an amazing surge | |||
| of ecstasy | |||
| and relief | "The child gives, because the body can, and the mind of the violator can't." I Never Told Anyone | ||
| IT WAS OVER!!!!! | "Thank you, thank you, it's over! I didn't think I'd make it this time?" 7 year old Cheryl quietly sobbed | ||
| And I again | |||
| felt like that | "Later on things did stop and time ended, and she perched on a single spot, weightless and empty in herself. Quite detached from her body, her mind stole out, prowling like a cat in the shadows, searching. And it found that there was nothing on any side of her, that she hung like a point, like a star in the empty sky." Shirley Grau | ||
| little traumatized child, | |||
| unable to speak, | |||
| petting the furniture, | "How replace the life of a loved lost child with a dream?" Don't Look Now | ||
| in shock. | "There was the pain. A breaking and entering when even the senses are torn apart. The act of rape on an eight-year-old body is a matter of the needle giving because the camel can't." I Never Told Anyone | ||
| I'd survived again, | |||
| until the next torture. | "To live several lives, you have to die several deaths." Francois Giroud | ||
| Cheryl Moore Barron Incest Survivor |
|||