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  I have discovered something about myself that I never really knew of, even people around me never suspected this part of me: using humor to deal with difficult subjects 
I first began to notice this new behavior in myself as I spent time in-patient in two clinics.  I noticed that with the other patients there I began to joke with them and kid them. This felt so new and good to me that I looked forward to other group settings where I could be the same way.  But in my everyday life at home, with my family, I rarely joined in the conversations, and everyone was used to that.
As time went on I began by voicing my opinions more and more openly with my husband (the children, three daughters, were already grown and moved out) This was rather unexpected by my husband and he responded most often with "Why did you never say this before?" because he had assumed for years that I shared his opinions on almost everything.
When I was with my daughters I exercised my new found freedom to "be myself" by making unexpected comments and joking with them - very unexpected 
To keep an already long story from being even longer I feel most inclined to use my humor to handle stress, tension, even anger, and it works so well for me that I use it regularly to encourage others 
Any one who is interested, I can tell about a recent example where I got my sister laughing about some of the tragic aspects of her Parkinsons 

I thought of this a few days ago as I was dealing with the days getting darker and shorter and colder: each new day it feels a little like I am going further and further out to sea, further from the beautiful white sandy beach with the sun shining and a light breeze blowing and the sand so warm and soft under my feet. As I get further from that shoreline, I sink deeper and deeper until I am under the surface. As I experience being under the waves I look up and the beach seemes so distant and I think I cannot even remember what it was like, being there. All I know now is the cold that surrounds me and it seems to be not so bad, just something to get used to. But still I long for that lovely beach, hope I will be there again sometime soon.

I wrote this four years ago, trying to express what my healing process feels like.  Originally there were more verses at the end about how my faith in God helped me to discover His love for me.  But since then, in the past two years I have had to look deeper to see that the love I need so badly is in me, that I can give all the love I need for my needy inner parts 


SURVIVOR

Heart beating – head reeling - A life that's spinning out of control
Can't function – all this junk in me - If there's one thing I have learned
It's to understand what devastating pain can do to you,
Your life trod on before it started to bloom
All you had was - splintered parts inside of you
So you fought to survive

All you knew was hurt – in your deepest part
Trying to defend that little spark
And no one understands why you can't take part
You had to fight  -  just to survive
The love you've never had – has passed you by

Now you wake up – start to rise up
Discovering parts in you you never knew
Feel healing – releasing - Hope begins to rise
You want to understand the devastating things that happened to you
And to take a chance for your life to bloom
And all the splintered parts inside of you
Can come to life

And you're allowed to hurt – in the deepest part
'Cause someone is there holding your inner spark
Someone who understands all your heart
It's you - who holds the key to love -

The love you never had – is given to you

[Trigger Warning!]

I am part of a very large family, five brothers and five sisters (the same mother and father).  I am one of the younger ones and grew up with two strong impressions about our family: pride of being a part of a large family, and a deep aching emptiness due to my early years of serious neglect.  The neglect could be seen as a result of the needs of so many children, because both my parents worked, and because of the financial crisis we were in during my early years.  But I can see now that it went beyond that, that I experienced no love, care or guidance from my parents, and grew up with a sense of being a burden for my older siblings who were put in charge of me and my younger sisters and two older brothers.

[/b]Trigger Warning!

(The neglect fit in with the broader purpose of the various forms of abuse pursued by my father.  At least some of my siblings, if not all, were victims along with myself of the repeated sexual abuse by my father.  The abuse came also from outside our home in what I suspect was organized ritual abuse and/or child sex trade.)

My personal memories of these things have only been uncovered by me in the past six years.  Before that I had and still have very few memories of my childhood.  I continue to struggle with accepting and believing these things, though two of my still surviving siblings have talked of these awful facts for many years.  But even though I have much evidence in my own life to substantiate this terrible history (as well as witnessing the brokenness in their lives of my brothers and sisters: psychological instability, serious illnesses, deaths and suicides) I still doubt myself even as I am writing this.

  It was my struggle with health problems that finally led me six years ago to begin to look into my childhood and reach out for trauma therapy.  In this time my husband and I went through very rocky times and only the willingness on both our parts to work hard at communicating, and our commitment to honesty with ourselves and with each other, has made it possible for us to still be together.  Still, I find marriage hugely challenging, though at the same time my relationship with my husband is the deepest bond I have ever experienced with anyone.  My relationship with my daughters is wonderful in many ways, but seems always to be in danger of a break-down.
Throughout my life, I feel that my greatest strength is what various therapist have observed in the past six years, that I have a personal connection with what I understand to be God. This has kept me stable and probably enabled me, together with my husband, to raise our three daughters without serious harm to any of us.

I am currently in the process of searching for a trauma therapist who can work with complex trauma at the level where I find myself now, of processing the new awareness I have about my life.  I continue to practice the methods I have learned about stabilization and leading a healthy life-style.  But I have an increasing need and desire (and hope) to build- up the parts of myself that were left behind all these years.  I am discovering more and more that there is so much more in me that wants to come alive, begin to have expression.  I the country where I live, in Germany, there is a growing crisis of a lack of well-trained trauma therapists to meet what seems to be an ever growing need here.  This means that my chances of getting good care probably depends on how much I am willing to pay for it myself.  I guess this is a crisis that many people around the world are facing, or do not even have the options that I do, to find effective therapy and be in a position to pay for it.  I guess I am pretty privileged after all.

In closing I will put in the chorus of a song that I wrote nine years ago, before I discovered the many things I know today. But it still applies for me today: 

Oh, I'm not givin' up - I'm not say'n it's over
I'm not thru, I won't STOP
I won't STOP - - no, no, no!