The following is an excerpt from Karla McLaren's book, Rebuilding the Garden: Healing the Spiritual Wounds of Childhood Sexual Assault. Survivors are urged to read the warning from the author and publisher before reading this page. Those interested are encouraged to read the book in its entirety. Though it is currently out-of print, it might be found from on-line used book sellers.*Survivors, please first read warning at the bottom of this page.
After you feel comfortable with the room in your head, (which means you can stay in it for more than a few minutes, and that it is still there waiting for you when you leave and come back to it), try a rescue. Don't be afraid. The assault is not happening to the present-day you. The assault is just a vivid memory in your mind; from within your room, you are all-powerful. You get to say what happens from inside your head.
Can you remember your assault? Mine happened so early in my life that I could only remember flashes: how the room looked, parts of my molester's body, the smells from the kitchen two rooms away. Whenever a memory came up, no matter how small, I or my little girl (if she could) stopped what was going on, and always ended the scene by forcing the molester away, taking my little girl in my arms, and placing her in a safe nest in the room in my head. However, wherever, or whenever your memories begin, you can create a powerful end to them.
You may want to rush right in with Twirling Machetes of Death, but be cautious. You don't want to scare the wits out of your already-frightened assaulted self. Get in your control seat, let the assault memory come forward, and rescue yourself in a way that feels powerful (the Machetes may work for you - just remember that your assaulted self may not trust anyone - not even you, so be observant).
If you can let rationality rest and give full permission to childish thoughts, you'll come very close to what your little one wanted to have happen in a perfect world. Create that perfect world and get your child-self out of there!
Help your little one up, clean them, clothe them, and take them to the room in your head. Create a safe area for them in a secluded part of your room. This area can be in front of a fireplace, in a hammock, in a big claw-foot bathtub, in a nest of pillows and blankets, in a canopy bed, or even in a small cave behind a waterfall.
Whatever your child wants is what they need. They may even want to sit with you in your control chair for awhile. That's fine too. This is there room as much as it is yours. Make sure to provide comfort food, toys, quiet games, art supplies, animals, and so on. Make sure your room is home to a convalescing child. Give your child what they want; when you do, you will be surprised to find that it's what you want as well.
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Even if all you can do is imagine an assault like yours at first, just do it. Create rescue fantasies as often as you can, and soon your ignored and tucked-away younger self will begin to trust and open up once again. You'll need the support and the memories of this little person in order to go further, but they'll need your help to move away from their constant pain and fear. Keep rescuing yourself form imaginary situations, and soon you'll begin to remember what really happened. By then, you'll be a spiritual rescue pro.
After your first rescue, you may find more assault replays coming forward, and even replays of embarrassing situations in your childhood totally unrelated to your assault. This is great! Once your conscious sees you clearing out, it will pull forward all sorts of things it's been wrestling with. Keep rescuing, amending, learning, and growing. Let the past come forward, meet it with your present day abilities, and let it go.
Don't allow painful memories to dog you and shame you. Meet them from behind your eyes, rescue the person who lived through their trauma, and go forward. Become a master at giving yourself the things you needed in the past. From within your room, you can say the things you should have said, do the things you should have done, and then watch as your present life becomes more peaceful.
Your ability to heal and release your past self from remembered trauma will translate directly into a new ability to care for yourself in the present. When your tremendous backlog of unexamined and unhealed issues begins to be relieved, you will become much more aware of your present needs and discomforts. You will, through rescuing yourself from past messes and discomforts, be able to use your new protective abilities in the present. Releasing energy from your past frees up energy in your present, and since the present is where all power and healing reside, your life will become more workable and livable.
But remember, we are not trying to make the assault disappear - hey presto! That is the kind of thinking which led to our dissociation in the first place. The assault happened, it's over with, and we can't change the facts. What we can do is heal our reaction to the assault; what we can do is heal the split that haunts our present-day lives.
With the rescue, we're not pretending we were saved in the past; we're saving ourselves now from the looming shadows of old, unhealed wounds. We're fighting our dragons, we're re-forming our myths, and we're re-engaging our stories in a ritual manner. We're stopping the molest-scenario replays so we can get on with our lives - so we can integrate our molested selves once again.As we move forward in healing, we need to have conscious access to the little person who experienced the trauma and still lives there, completely unaware of just how frightening and wrong the situation was. If we learn the language and dances of the inner world, and maintain contact with that inner person, we won't fall into the minimizer's trap. We'll know exactly how we felt, and still feel, and we'll be on guard when assault-like experiences lumber into our present-day lives. We'll protect ourselves by understanding our wounds, and by honoring them.
As adults, we tend to rationalize our pain and pretend that our past didn't affect us. In essence, we make the pain unimportant. When we do this, we make the entire reality of the split self who lived through and lives in unbearable pain completely unimportant.
When we minimize, we don't protect our child-self; we protect our molester by excusing the attack in a whorl of psychobabble. When we pretend to be fine, we protect the family members who failed to help or continued to hurt us; and when we make the excuse that life is just hard, we protect reality itself.
I say this: let reality and all the people in our lives hire their own protection. We need to rescue ourselves from the monsters we fear, heal our unrepeatable reality, and stop de-personalizing our own private experience of hell. We need to rescue ourselves and create safety by knowing that we experienced pain that was as real and true as life itself.
*Warning: "This book presents powerful healing techniques for survivors of childhood sexual trauma. If you intend to use the information in this book, you must take this work seriously and with clear intent, or confusion may result; therefore, the author and publisher cannot assume liability or responsibility for actions inspired by information in this book. Since you are prescribing for yourself, use your own best discernment, or consult a holistic psychotherapist, medical expert, or trained healer for specific applications to your individual situation. Please, approach this work with due caution, spiritual intelligence, and a deep sense of personal responsibility."
Related Pages
Creating the Room in Your Head
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