“As a Nursing Student, I have significant interest in the physiological responses that occured during my own experiences with a vast array of trauma. Behaviors that mystefied me. Behaviors that continued to occur months after the inital trauma had ceased. These experiences fascinated me, and I wanted to learn and understand why my own body was reacting in this way, as I will research in further detail in my book. The body has very find tuned responses to protect itself. It really is an amazing thing. Just as the body is programmed to respond to physical danger, so to, is it trained to protect itself when the mind and soul are under attack.”

“I am finding it incredibly difficult to find my voice. Because my voice keeps getting smothered. They hold all the cards. They have the lawyer, the funds, the resources. The perogative that they have my family and my life in their hands. And I try so hard to do what they want me to do. When will I be enough to be a mother again?”
–Drowning in Madagascar

“If you are determined to find fault in me, you are bound to find it.”

Narcissism

“All of the sudden when she talked to me, I noticed something very distinctly. The whole time she was interacting with me in the street, she did not mention my sobriety at all. She did not mention my addictions. She did not question my sobriety. She did not mention drug use at all. Which I thought was very strange, I kept waiting for her to say something, to bring it up. But what she did was this. She started berating me on my mothering skills. How I never cooked enough. I wasn’t a good enough cook, I didn’t cook enough meals. Or, when we got Gabriel, he was a year and a half behind in reading and you did not study with him enough. Or you did not do this right or you did not do that right. She pretty much started telling me everything that I did not do well as a mother. Informing me of the many things that they had to correct my children because I was a negligent parent essentially. I had wanted to say that parenting is ideally a two person job. And you know what? I am not perfect. But guess what? No parents are perfect. We tried to study with him, we did our best. I never thought that I was a bad mother. I knew that I could be better in some areas. But what jarred me about the conversation was that suddenly it was not about completing steps A, B, and C anymore. It was not about drug use or sobriety. The feeling that I got was that she was using my own children as a bargaining chip. As leverage. Because, you know, she has my family. And she is telling me, ‘If only I were a better cook, if only I were a better, more studious mother, if only I were this and that, then, and only then, you could have your children back. Maybe you could have your family back sooner.’ And so instead of having an end in sight to this hell that I have been living through, all of the sudden it transitioned into, ‘Shit. I am not going to get my children back until this woman approves of me. And this is a woman, who I have come to realize, will never be pleased with me. I will never be enough for her. And that leads me to believe that there will be no end to this nightmare. That I will never get my family back, and I know that I will. But if I have to wait until that woman is pleased with me, this could never end. Because I will never be enough for her. And it has just taken me this long to realize that. And that is the scariest part. Because all of the sudden I thought there was an end in sight. I thought that I was close. But now I realize the power play that is going on here. When will I be enough to be a mother again?”

-Drowning in Madagascar

“Somewhere along the line, everything shifted. Things began to change. Mostly subtle ways. When was this seemingly invisible and unspoken line drawn? I have not been looked at, or treated the same way ever since. I have never mentioned this transition outwardly, but the tension and disapproval are thick and palpable in the air with unwavering predictability, leaving me in a constant state of paranoia. I feel like the rug has been pulled out from under my feet, leaving me in a perpetual state of hurt and confusion. Quite suddenly, I feel so alone and ostracized. It’s not so much what you say, it is what you do not. I have felt you pull away from me. Why is it that until you can obtain measurable, tangible, and readable progress in my life that you are to treat me as less deserving. I would like you to clarify something for me. How do you measure my progress? In the number of classes I’ve attended or the number of meals I’ve prepared for For my husband? I am guarded around you because I have been conditioned to be. That in no way reflects the progress I have or have not made.”

–Drowning in Madagascar

Trauma and Trauma Bonds

“I hugged them. I embraced them everyday when I left, and they clung to me. My child clung to me. And she could see my pain from a distance. And if she could not see it, she could certainly hear it. She could hear my children wail and fight and sob as they were being pulled out of my arms as they were complaining about not having enough time with me. When I had been forced to pry my eight year old son off of my waist with such force, as he clung to my waist like a vice. To be forced to pry your own child off of you because you are no longer welcome in their presence. To process that on one occasion would be difficult enough for anyone. But to subject yourself willingly, to know that the one place where you feel the most threatened, the most unsafe, the most hurt, the most panicked, at the most fear, is where your whole life resides, in your children. It was the only place I could really be with them. And so I subjected myself to the intensity and the rawness of my emotions I would feel on a daily basis. Week after week, month after month, year after year. “

–Drowning in Madagascar

“Very rarely was I offered an invitation for dinner based solely on the fact that I was their mother, and they were my children. Or that I was a long-standing member of the family, to which they reiterated that I was an essential part of. I had to perform some service for them to earn that right. And I was conditioned to react accordingly. When I was downstairs and would smell the scent of a meal, roast beef or potatoes or something homemade that she would whip up, that would be by signal to leave. And I taught myself to leave, before I was degraded and shamed by being asked to leave, while my own family sat around the dinner table without me. I was conditioned to believe that dinner time with my family was a place I simply could not be whenever I wanted to be.”
– Drowning in Madagascar

The Physiology of Trauma Responses

“One time we were sitting on the pew together, and I was sitting next to her and my child started wailing. My husband handed her over to me. I reached forth my hands to console her, and his mother ripped her out of my arms. I was so distraught right there on the pew that I gasped and I leaned my head on my husband’s shoulder for a minute before I jumped out of my seat and ran into the lobby. And I was terrified to look behind me only to discover that she was chasing me. I said, ‘Get away from me!’ But she did not. She continued to pursue after me right there in the foyer of the church and to back me up in a corner of a hallway and to come within an inch of my nose. Terrifying me, to my core. Irrelevant were the words that she spoke from that point on because I did not remember to the slightest degree. All I remember was the fear. I remember telling her specifically to get away from me and to leave me alone. But she did not hear me. She chased after me and backed me up into the corner in the house of God and got within an inch of my nose. And I remember covering my hands over my mouth to keep from whimpering. All I remember was the fear.“

–Drowning in Madagascar

Gaslighting

“She broke down my defenses and lured me in for a hug. As much as I hesitated to do so. I broke down and started crying in earnest. I sobbed and I said, ‘It is just so hard to be away from my children.’ She genuinely acted loving and concerned, Then she said, ‘You wouldn’t want me to get another restraining order on you, would you? You don’t want me to file another restraining order?’ I recoiled in fear and sobbed, ‘No! No!’ And I thought to myself at that moment, ‘The first one was unjust enough! Why would you put another one on me?’ She was using scare tactics on me and putting me back in my place essentially to honor the initial contract that stipulated that I not disparage them. To try harder to stuff down the injustice of it all. To bury my emotions. To cover up the indignity of it all. And I will, for my children. Because I do not want to cause them inner conflict. But it is not helping my inner conflict at all.”

-Drowning in Madagascar