“Does it hurt?" "Sometimes, said the skin horse.It takes a long time.Once you are real, you can’t be ugly, except to people that don’t understand.”
-The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
ABOUT ME:
Born in the 1940s, I was the second oldest of five children whose lives were filled with neglect and physical, mental, emotional, and sexual abuse. My father was a raging alcoholic pedophile, and fear and anxiety were my constant companions starting before I was a year old.
I developed a fragmented psyche and post-traumatic stress disorder. Most people have heard of multiple personality disorder; fragmentation is similar, but not as extreme. Instead of an inner child I had nine, most of them to deal with the sexual abuse and two that dealt with the rest of my life. There were so many intense feelings around the abuse that I assigned different parts of it to different fragments of my mind.
In 1991, clinically depressed and unable think straight, I was having flashbacks of my father’s sexual abuse, and it was disrupting my entire life. I started seeing a trauma therapist, who was my lifeline for ten years and who I continued to see until mid 2003.
In 2001 I started taking workshops at the Option Institute in Massachusetts, and embraced their teachings so much that I became certified to work with people with the Option Process®. I love having a clear, peaceful mind and I love helping others get that for themselves, also. I thank God many times every day for my peaceful, happy, joy filled life. It is an emotional balance that I wasn’t sure I would ever attain. I can (and do) think clearly and will never be depressed again! I have changed so many of my beliefs about what life should be like and accept whatever happens in my life now as a gift, and know that it truly is.
Because of the intense abuse, I was never connected to my feelings or knew who I really was, so couldn’t share that with others. Consequently, I never had close relationships. Now I am blessed with wonderful close friends that I cherish deeply.
I have so much to celebrate! I live the happy, peaceful, joy filled life today that I often imagined was only an unattainable dream. This is thanks to a skilled and caring therapist, twelve step programs, spiritual teachers Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra and others, the Option Institute, and my never giving up on myself – no matter how hard it was, I kept on keeping on with the things that I believed would help me heal.
My passion is helping others get to know, and empower themselves to live happy, peaceful, empowered lives. I do this with my training from the Option Institute and my personal experience.
Some of my personal loves, besides spending time with friends, are spiritual study, gardening, bird watching, hiking, golf, qigong, and yoga.
