If you are on Facebook, come by and see Carolyn Nash's author page and say hi. :)
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Carolyn-Nash/185694554847144
This story is now available on Amazon under the title RAISING ABEL with the pen name Carolyn Nash. If you have read the book, and you have a chance, I would so appreciate it if you'd leave a review on Amazon. It's of great help.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
020412 (022312) Why do you guys keep coming here to see what I've written?
In the previous blog entries that went into RAISING ABEL, I'm certain I wrote about my issues with self-doubt. Self doubt is the main reason my blog entries are so few and far between. What can I possibly write that someone would want to read?
However, I just figured out something crucially important. No one is forcing anyone to click on this blog. Ergo, people are clicking on the blog because they want to read what I've written.
Extraordinary concept.
I think you can see why I have such a hard time marketing my book.
I'm 55 years old (another extraordinary concept). My abuse was almost 50 years ago. I've been through therapy for years and years and years. And yet, the gift keeps giving. The way I was raised and formed by my parents still effects what I do and what I think. I constantly fight the concept that there is no way anyone could possibly be interested in what I've experienced and what I've written. It's a painful struggle for me.
How much harder is it for Abel, whose abuse was orders of magnitude worse than mine? (I know. Abuse is abuse and there is no "scale" for judging whose abuse was worse, but his was worse.) Abel is 21; he'll be 22 this summer. He struggles so hard to try to determine what his place is in the world. He says (and I'm hoping it's only "says" and not what he truly believes) that he is living on borrowed time. He says he was supposed to have died long ago at the hands of his birth parents or when he took all those pills. He thinks he will die young and that it will be okay because he should already be dead. I'm sure you can imagine how those words pierce my heart.
February 23. I've been avoiding this blog as if clicking on it would give me an electric shock. There's something I'm avoiding, but haven't quite figured it all out, yet.
I will tell you the last couple of weeks have been pretty interesting. One morning, Abel told me that he had realized what he had to do to make his life have meaning. After I was dead and gone (because he didn't want to hurt me) he was going to track down his birth parents and destroy them. He'd been up all night and this was eating at him. He felt the only thing he could do to protect other people and to prove that they should never have gotten away with what they did, was to destroy their lives the way they had tried to destroy his. I argued, I begged, I pleaded, I threatened, but nothing was going to dissuade him from this goal.
Please let me make something very clear: I do not and have never believed Abel would actually search for and do violence to his birth parents. But I argued because it so hurts me to have him think these poisonous thoughts.I still labor under the false belief that if I can just come up with the right way to say something, it will take his pain away.
So, he finally went up to his room to sleep and I sat and worried.
The next day, maybe the day after, he came to me again. He said, "I still think they deserve to have their lives taken away, but I'm not going to do it. I won't do it because I love you. And, even if you were dead when I did it, it would not be honoring what you have given me. You're my mom."
I cried and thanked him for one of the greatest gifts he's ever given me.
Abel is a good, loving, gentle, generous soul. But, he has all of this rage inside him and he wants so badly to find a way to clean it out. I believe that whenever someone is badly hurt, the primitive part of their psyche wants to strike back and kill. I think that actually bringing that feeling forward, imagining what it would be like, and then finding a reason to discard it without feeling like a coward or a failure for not having done it, was extremely important. It was disturbing and difficult, but important.
Working with Stanley, he is gradually clearing more of the anger and pain, but there is so much that those bastards did...
And when your kids get older they may also say some outrageous and frightening things. Try to remember that it's part of the process of expressing the poison, pushing it out where it can be cleansed away.
And remember, you can't track down the birth parents either, no matter how much you would like to.
However, I just figured out something crucially important. No one is forcing anyone to click on this blog. Ergo, people are clicking on the blog because they want to read what I've written.
Extraordinary concept.
I think you can see why I have such a hard time marketing my book.
I'm 55 years old (another extraordinary concept). My abuse was almost 50 years ago. I've been through therapy for years and years and years. And yet, the gift keeps giving. The way I was raised and formed by my parents still effects what I do and what I think. I constantly fight the concept that there is no way anyone could possibly be interested in what I've experienced and what I've written. It's a painful struggle for me.
How much harder is it for Abel, whose abuse was orders of magnitude worse than mine? (I know. Abuse is abuse and there is no "scale" for judging whose abuse was worse, but his was worse.) Abel is 21; he'll be 22 this summer. He struggles so hard to try to determine what his place is in the world. He says (and I'm hoping it's only "says" and not what he truly believes) that he is living on borrowed time. He says he was supposed to have died long ago at the hands of his birth parents or when he took all those pills. He thinks he will die young and that it will be okay because he should already be dead. I'm sure you can imagine how those words pierce my heart.
February 23. I've been avoiding this blog as if clicking on it would give me an electric shock. There's something I'm avoiding, but haven't quite figured it all out, yet.
I will tell you the last couple of weeks have been pretty interesting. One morning, Abel told me that he had realized what he had to do to make his life have meaning. After I was dead and gone (because he didn't want to hurt me) he was going to track down his birth parents and destroy them. He'd been up all night and this was eating at him. He felt the only thing he could do to protect other people and to prove that they should never have gotten away with what they did, was to destroy their lives the way they had tried to destroy his. I argued, I begged, I pleaded, I threatened, but nothing was going to dissuade him from this goal.
Please let me make something very clear: I do not and have never believed Abel would actually search for and do violence to his birth parents. But I argued because it so hurts me to have him think these poisonous thoughts.I still labor under the false belief that if I can just come up with the right way to say something, it will take his pain away.
So, he finally went up to his room to sleep and I sat and worried.
The next day, maybe the day after, he came to me again. He said, "I still think they deserve to have their lives taken away, but I'm not going to do it. I won't do it because I love you. And, even if you were dead when I did it, it would not be honoring what you have given me. You're my mom."
I cried and thanked him for one of the greatest gifts he's ever given me.
Abel is a good, loving, gentle, generous soul. But, he has all of this rage inside him and he wants so badly to find a way to clean it out. I believe that whenever someone is badly hurt, the primitive part of their psyche wants to strike back and kill. I think that actually bringing that feeling forward, imagining what it would be like, and then finding a reason to discard it without feeling like a coward or a failure for not having done it, was extremely important. It was disturbing and difficult, but important.
Working with Stanley, he is gradually clearing more of the anger and pain, but there is so much that those bastards did...
And when your kids get older they may also say some outrageous and frightening things. Try to remember that it's part of the process of expressing the poison, pushing it out where it can be cleansed away.
And remember, you can't track down the birth parents either, no matter how much you would like to.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
010312A Abel and Jacob
This Christmas season was one of the best I've ever experienced. Jacob BELIEVES in Santa. I can't think of anything better than watching a 6-year-old in Spongebob footie pajamas dancing around a living room so excited that Santa is really going to come! I think Abel had a pretty good Christmas, too, but it hasn't all been peaches and cream. Things have been going well, but I don't want to leave anyone with the idea that everything is okay. Mama didn't kiss the boo-boo and make it all better. (Would that I could!) Before dawn one morning recently, Abel knocked on my door and announced that he thought he was having a panic attack. His heart was beating rapidly, he couldn't sit still let alone sleep. We went downstairs to talk, and did so for more than two hours.
And here I go with another conflict. When I wrote the other posts that eventually went into the book, it was all in the past. Somehow, it seemed okay to share, as long as I protected our privacy. Now, I hesitate to discuss the details of what Abel and I discussed the other morning because I feel like I would be breaching a confidence. There was so much rage in what he shared with me, and unless you are a parent of a traumatized child, you might be shocked at the form that rage took. Truthfully, I'm going to have to do some more thinking, as well as talking more with Abel about what I should share.
I guess for now, I want you to know that it hasn't and it doesn't all go away when they become an adult. The purpose of this blog, now, is to share our experience with this transition from boy to man. I just have to figure out how to do that without betraying my son's trust.
And here I go with another conflict. When I wrote the other posts that eventually went into the book, it was all in the past. Somehow, it seemed okay to share, as long as I protected our privacy. Now, I hesitate to discuss the details of what Abel and I discussed the other morning because I feel like I would be breaching a confidence. There was so much rage in what he shared with me, and unless you are a parent of a traumatized child, you might be shocked at the form that rage took. Truthfully, I'm going to have to do some more thinking, as well as talking more with Abel about what I should share.
I guess for now, I want you to know that it hasn't and it doesn't all go away when they become an adult. The purpose of this blog, now, is to share our experience with this transition from boy to man. I just have to figure out how to do that without betraying my son's trust.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Results of the Book Giveaway
In scanning back over the blog, I realized I hadn't given the final results for the book giveaway on the 9th.
On Amazon.com, 711 books were given away.
On Amazon.co.uk (the United Kingdom Amazon site) 89 books were given away.
A nice, even 800 books. :)
If you or anyone you know got one of these, I would certainly appreciate a review on Amazon, particularly the Amazon UK site. There are no reviews yet in the UK.
As I've mentioned, I'm somewhat conflicted about "selling" the book through this blog. Selling in any form is difficult for me. Yet, I have two boys to raise, so here I go. If you can spread the word about the book, that would be great.
Too much hard sell?
I also would like to take the opportunity to thank ISoCannotMakeThis Sh!tUp.blogspot.com and OneMothersDay.blogspot.com for their reviews of RAISING ABEL. A positive review from a trauma mama is worth so much to me.
Oh, and by the way, Kirkus Reviews posted a wonderful review of RA. You can see it at
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/carolyn-nash/raising-abel-qiHHTZkA/
On Amazon.com, 711 books were given away.
On Amazon.co.uk (the United Kingdom Amazon site) 89 books were given away.
A nice, even 800 books. :)
If you or anyone you know got one of these, I would certainly appreciate a review on Amazon, particularly the Amazon UK site. There are no reviews yet in the UK.
As I've mentioned, I'm somewhat conflicted about "selling" the book through this blog. Selling in any form is difficult for me. Yet, I have two boys to raise, so here I go. If you can spread the word about the book, that would be great.
Too much hard sell?
I also would like to take the opportunity to thank ISoCannotMakeThis Sh!tUp.blogspot.com and OneMothersDay.blogspot.com for their reviews of RAISING ABEL. A positive review from a trauma mama is worth so much to me.
Oh, and by the way, Kirkus Reviews posted a wonderful review of RA. You can see it at
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/carolyn-nash/raising-abel-qiHHTZkA/
Saturday, December 17, 2011
121711 Maybe I'm happy
Last night, Abel, Jacob, and I were sitting in the living room watching something, maybe Kung Fu Panda. Abel and Jacob had been wrestling and laughing on the couch. Abel was torturing Jacob by tickling his feet. Jacob was torturing Abel by calling him a big fat turtle (yes, it must have been Kung Fu Panda). When they tired of that, Abel moved over to the arm chair and sat, hands folded, staring at his intertwined fingers. After a minute or two, he looked up at me.
"I feel weird," he said.
I got that little lurch in the pit of my stomach. "What do you mean, weird?"
"I don't know. I'm not tired. I'm not wired up."
"Yes?"
"I'm not mad."
Thank God.
He paused for another few seconds. He looked up at me and smiled. "Maybe I'm happy."
We are going through a very good time right now. Jacob, being 6, is ecstatic that Christmas is in one week. Abel is "maybe" happy. I am definitely happy... and trying not to be scared by the happiness. It's hard not to let the old training come to the fore, that if you're happy, something has to happen to spoil it. Truthfully, the little bit of fear that I'm experiencing is so much less than in past days. And, Amelia has also finally got it through my thick head that fear doesn't equal death. Fear can just be fear, a little anxiety, and doesn't have to rule my life, or my sons'.
For those of you in the middle of the bad times, hold onto the image of Abel sitting in that chair, saying those words: "Maybe I'm happy." It can happen. And it can be the most wonderful reward for all the struggles. I always said to Amelia that I could make it through anything if I only knew how the story would turn out. While I know we still have challenges, and no one knows what life will bring, right now, right this minute with Abel stretched out on the couch scratching Squeaker's ears, and Jacob crawling around on the floor giving voices to his Power Rangers, I am so happy. It's all any parent could want.
"I feel weird," he said.
I got that little lurch in the pit of my stomach. "What do you mean, weird?"
"I don't know. I'm not tired. I'm not wired up."
"Yes?"
"I'm not mad."
Thank God.
He paused for another few seconds. He looked up at me and smiled. "Maybe I'm happy."
We are going through a very good time right now. Jacob, being 6, is ecstatic that Christmas is in one week. Abel is "maybe" happy. I am definitely happy... and trying not to be scared by the happiness. It's hard not to let the old training come to the fore, that if you're happy, something has to happen to spoil it. Truthfully, the little bit of fear that I'm experiencing is so much less than in past days. And, Amelia has also finally got it through my thick head that fear doesn't equal death. Fear can just be fear, a little anxiety, and doesn't have to rule my life, or my sons'.
For those of you in the middle of the bad times, hold onto the image of Abel sitting in that chair, saying those words: "Maybe I'm happy." It can happen. And it can be the most wonderful reward for all the struggles. I always said to Amelia that I could make it through anything if I only knew how the story would turn out. While I know we still have challenges, and no one knows what life will bring, right now, right this minute with Abel stretched out on the couch scratching Squeaker's ears, and Jacob crawling around on the floor giving voices to his Power Rangers, I am so happy. It's all any parent could want.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
121311 A most wonderful gift
When I came home from work yesterday, Abel had cleaned the house. Living room, bathroom, hall, stairs, front porch, kitchen, dining room, even my office. He swept, did dishes, put things away.
He did it just to make me happy.
He did it just to make me happy.
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