~ Posted 27th January 2016 ~
 
On Tuesday, the 24th January, I had only 4 hours sleep and wrote the previous blog post about that… and then, the very next night, on the 25th, I only had 4 hours sleep yet again, but this time for a different reason.
 
My phone rang and woke me at about 01h45... A man on the line was letting me know that my 2nd ex-husband had passed away at 01h05… Not the kind of news one wants to hear in the middle of the night.
 
It was impossible to fall back to sleep after that.  I lay there with my thoughts and emotions bouncing all over the place.
 
Why was I feeling so sad?  I thought.  Why were there tears coming out of my eyes?  I honestly cannot remember ever feeling loved by the man, or genuinely happy with him.  I lived in real fear of him due to his sadistic nature and strange, warped behaviors.  I knew there was a problem the very 1st night after I married him.  Two weeks later I was already searching for help by speaking to church leaders, because I felt so unloved and miserable… Why had he married me? 
 
My quest for help went on for the full 14 years that I was married to him… most of those years I was trapped in a state of perpetual tears… and finally my marriage ended in divorce when my sister and brother in law came to my aid, organizing legal aid and the financial help we needed… I finally found the courage to set my children and I free from the torture that had been ours for far-far too long already!
 
Proof was found that my ex was homosexually inclined and he admitted to our church at the time, that the proof was his… even letters to other homosexual’s, written by his own hand.
 
He was an emotional abuser… a narcissist.  I often said, that it was for me, like living with the devil himself.  He was so clever… nobody believed us… nobody could hear our cries for help.  I visited FAMSA and tried everything, everywhere to find help for my children and I, but we were invisible and the world was blind and deaf to our tears and cries.
 
Anyway… long story… my book will be more detailed and I’m not writing this right now, to berate a man who has only just died.
 
As I lay there in my bed during the dark early hours of the 25th, I searched my mind for answers to the reason for how sad I was feeling.  There was no love lost at his death… none whatsoever.  During our marriage, my love for him was beaten down so many times, by the emotional abuse that he seemed to find such twisted pleasure in inflicting on us, that in the end, he managed to kill every piece of love I had left for him… so there was nothing left… only a large void where my love for him used to be.  That void had become so empty, that I had no need to ever look back on it again.
 
So, all I could come up with, was, that I was sad, because I had no way of sending “that terrible past” away with him and in the process, righting it somehow.
 
Like in 2012, when I handed over the keys of the old house that my children and I had lived in for 30 years… (the first 14 years of that time with my ex… a tortuous time with him).  That old house was literally rotting and falling to pieces around us… it held such terrible memories, but as I was leaving it and handing over those keys, I cried bitterly… I made the new owners promise me that they would make that house beautiful… fixed, repainted and lovely… they promised.  I needed to know that I would not be leaving all that ugliness there forever… that those new owners would keep their promise to take all the ugliness away and change it into something lovely.
 
I think that’s what my sadness and tears were all about this time also, as I lay there trying to go back to sleep… because it seemed that not even his death could rid the past of all the ugliness that we had endured living with him…
 
After our divorce, my children and I chose the attitude of… “If we had to have anything to do with him at all, we would prefer not to be ugly to him.”  I was still very scared of him and didn’t want to be too close to him at any time, but if we had to talk, I chose to be friendly and kind in the process, and I’m grateful for that decision, because when we finally moved home, and found ourselves struggling for funds to live on… both my youngest son and I still without work and myself in no state mentally to go out to work, my ex found out about it and made the decision to send us a large sum of money which kept us going until we could be more established in our new area.
 
Now that is something he would never have done, and I do believe that our decision to be kind and decent towards him after our divorce from him, is what brought about that extremely unexpected Miracle.  When he deposited that lifesaving money into my account, he said to me that he did not want to see us ending up in the ditch.  So, there was this man, who had deprived us of so much for years and years and treated us so cruelly, now showing that deep down, there was some goodness in him that he was still able to tap into, at least, for that moment in time. 
 
I stopped fearing him after that day.
 
We were forced to move house, because he retired in May 2012 and was no longer able to pay maintenance support.  So, for about three months after moving from the old house, we were penniless, jobless and did not have a home of our own yet, and psychologically, I was still in a mess after what had happened with the transference and countertransference breakdown of my therapy… something I don’t think I will ever recover from completely.
 
In November, last year, I celebrated my 60th birthday with the Logotherapy students at their exam workshop, and because I am still on office duty when I’m at the workshops, I always sit near the door in order that I can exit quickly if someone calls to enquire about the Logotherapy courses.
 
The phone rang and once outside of the classroom I responded… it was my ex.  He was calling to wish me happy birthday which was a surprise to me, and at the same time told me that he was not doing well.  While he was talking, he hinted that he had had enough of his own health struggles… mentioning the story of how his own father gave up when his wife had died and he no longer had any desire to go on… when his quality of life was left without meaning. 
 
There and then, I said to my ex… “If you ever feel that you are dying, please would you let me know… I will come and get you and we will make sure that you are comfortable… we would take good care of you” He seemed to appreciate that.  We did chat again a few weeks later and he sounded well on the phone, chatting away about nothing much as always and I listened and responded when I could get a word in edgeways. 
 
As soon as we had our workshop lunch break, I told my trainer, Teria, what I’d done, because of how absurd it seemed to me… I couldn’t understand my own actions… Why had I offered to be there for him if he was ever dying… she responded:
 
“It is all about the power of forgiveness; lifting the bitter burden of hurt about what someone did to you.  It means that you remove your condemnation of them and free them to give their own account before their Creator.  Their voices will not be drowned out by accusations coming from the left and from the right.  They will stand alone before the One they have to give an account to.  The verdict, after all, is solely His. 

By doing this, forgiving them and even by proving that forgiveness by showing them compassion and mercy when they need it most, when they are dying (as in the case of your ex-husband), or when they are hopelessly caught in the misery and consequences of their own crooked lives, you are giving them the fairest chance to come to their senses before it is too late.  You give them a chance to come to terms with their own lives, with the wrong of it, and to repent of it.

May we be granted such forgiveness!  How with this attitude, of wiping the slate of accusation, anger, bitterness and feelings of revenge towards our perpetrators clean, our own spirits soar in freedom!” ~ Teria Shantall
 
Strangely around the exact same time he called me at the workshop in November, my one son mentioned to me, that my first son had gone to a doctor and when the doctor recognized his surname, he mentioned that my ex was not 100% and even suggested that a visit from family might be in order.  My second son decided that he might go and visit my ex, but with not living nearby, work commitments, his wife being away on business for a week during the school holidays, and study commitments, he never had a chance yet.  But the very fact that he wanted to, I thought showed me a very special kind of compassion… a compassion even for “the abuser”… in his hour of need.  But as none of us really knew what his struggle was, there didn’t seem to be much urgency to go and visit him.
 
Anyway… now, my ex was dead and in the morning of the 25th and so, I let my children know.  He was the father of the second two children… the first two he had adopted at my insistence, because I wanted us to be a whole family… it was so important to me.  Their own father had paid no interest in them over the years.  Sadly, my second husband also did not show them any love or care and was downright nasty to them… especially my first son who he absolutely despised.  He didn’t care much for any of the children really and they all knew it.  After the divorce, he chatted with my youngest son on his birthday for about two years, but that was it… none of them had much to do with him at all, although my second son took it upon himself to deal with him when it came to signing all the house sale papers, dealing with the lawyers, etc.  That spared me a huge amount of stress for which I will always be grateful.
 
My cellphone died on Christmas day, so I lost all my messages, before I’d even seen them!  A day or two later, with my tablet then set up as a phone, I sent my ex a message to find out how he was doing and to wish him a Happy New year.  He responded kindly.
 
On the morning of the 25th January, two days ago, I was exhausted from the two nights in a row, of very little sleep and having lain awake half the night with so many thoughts running through my head… a complete tangle of emotions which I had not had a chance to make full sense of yet.
 
But then something really beautiful happened…
 
My children, all seemed to handle the situation of the death of my ex, each with a certain degree of compassion.  I think my daughter struggled a little, yet, sometime during the day, she sent an sms which showed me that she had not written her father’s death off completely… she wrote: 
 
“Is there going to be a funeral?” 
 
Even though I know that the extent of her hurt (not having a father who loved her) runs very deep, I felt a sense of gratitude that she cared enough to at least ask the question.  I would not expect her to attend his memorial service though… that she can decide on, on her own and the rest of us will be there for her if she comes.
 
My two older boys who honestly don’t owe my ex anything, both immediately after hearing about his death, took it upon themselves to be involved where necessary.  My second son called the person who had called me in the middle of the night and offered his assistance wherever needed.  He discussed funeral/memorial arrangements… wanted to check with his work if he had a policy that might pay for a decent funeral.  Once he found out that there were people who knew my ex, who were taking care of things, he made it clear that we had no intention of interfering in what they chose to do with my ex, but that we wanted to assist wherever we could.
 
I cannot tell you how much comfort I felt in seeing that spark of compassion that each of my children displayed, even in the face of such ugly past memories and the damage that still sits with each one of us as a result of living with that awful abuse for so many years.
 
I felt such an immense sense of gratitude towards my children on Wednesday, because their compassionate reactions to the news of my ex’s death, helped me to gently unravel the tangle of emotions in my mind.  I was able to nap in the morning for two hours, and that got me through the rest of day.  I took ¼ sleeping pill in the evening and thankfully had a good night’s sleep.
 
My son also heard that a woman friend of my ex’s was very sad about his death, so I wrote an sms yesterday to tell her that my ex had spoken very highly of her, and that I was sure she must be feeling very sad at her loss, and if she wanted to chat, I’d be here for her.  I hoped that my message to her, would help her to feel comfortable about my children and I attending the memorial service… I didn’t want her to be worrying about that also. 
 
And just like the promise of my old house being fixed… so too, I do believe, that the attitude that my children and I have adopted at this time, towards our abuser’s passing, is one that will ultimately bring each of us the healing we might still need. 
 
I am glad we that have chosen to deal with his death in this way.   I want to believe that my ex was having a genuine change of heart for the better over the months prior to his death. 
 
I believe that by righting the wrong somehow, on both sides, we have created a legacy of honour for the surname that we carry and the surname our grandchildren and descendants will also carry in the future. 
 
I believe that this is how things should be, especially when there is a need for healing…

To conduct our lives in a spirit of genuine LOVE? 
 
Thank you for sharing with me…
 
~ Pana

~ Posted 24th January 2017 ~
 
So, at church, I was asked to do a talk in Sacrament on a subject that deeply disturbs my psyche, because it brings back many traumatic memories of what my therapist did to me with her fanatical religious pushing... wanting to force me out of my (as she believed it to be), "evil church" to avoid the "Eternal burning hell fires", by joining her "perfect" church!!!!
 
It all resulted in such terrible emotional agony with me becoming very suicidal… and to avoid suicide, I started to self-injure, and this went on for a good few months before I was able to take control of this negative outcome and the added abuse, against myself!!! 
 
Memories I could do without... so I wish “they” would leave me alone! 
 
They may regret asking me to do this talk, because I cannot share such an acutely sensitive subject without the hurt and anger surfacing and without being authentic and true to my own emotions and struggles! 
 
I specifically asked the church I attend now, to leave me alone, and not to have any expectations of me. I’d come and go as I am comfortable to do and all I expect of any of them is to feel their unconditional love… “the ultimate healer.”
 
By pushing me to do what they feel I should be doing… to become “like them” … they will eventually push me away altogether! 
 
My religious values have arrived at a point where my personal relationship with my “Maker”, is between me and my Father in Heaven and not one based on what church I attend and how good or obedient a member I am in the eyes of the other members and leaders there. 
 
I am who I am… “they” cannot FIX me or CHANGE me.  My life is in my God’s Hands… I TRUST in Him and Him alone.
 
If I cannot be unconditionally loved and unconditionally accepted for “who I am on my own” as I choose to attend the church I do, then it is not a place I want to be… (All or nothing when it comes to “true and unconditional love and true and unconditional acceptance”!  I will settle for no less anymore… I’ve settled for less for far too long already!)
 
I have developed as a result of my therapist’s abuse and the horrible abuses I’ve witnessed happening in this world as a result of fanatical religiosity, what is known I believe as "Religious Trauma Syndrome"... and mostly, because nobody believed my side of the story when I was going through that trauma which was inflicted on me by my therapist… nobody would listen to me...
 
I was silenced, because the "therapist is always right"... she could lie her way out of anything, because I was the client with the problems!
 
I had no voice as an abused child, and I had no voice again when that happened!
 
As a result, I do NOT discuss my religious values with anyone, because I now treasure more than ever, what has become very personal and sacred between my Maker and me…
 
This letter is a rare exception… I need a voice today and I need to believe that someone can hear me today and someone out there understands…
 
Recently in one of our Logotherapy meetings, my trainer, completely surprised me by asking me to speak to the group about what happened in therapy with the transference and counter-transference which all but destroyed me at the time.
 
It was the first time I had been given a true voice and listening ears… I broke down and became very choked up trying to tell the group what happened and how drastically it has affected my religious worldview and further destroyed my trust in the world… especially the “WORLD” of religion… and changed my life due to the added trauma of it all.
 
4 hours sleep last night as a result!!!  I will not be able to deliver a talk at all, if I cannot find a way to sleep this week with my mind once again inflamed by those awful memories of that time in therapy, and other times where religion has deeply insulted and hurt myself and my family due to “their” judgements against us at times when what we really needed was “their unconditional LOVE”…
 
I wonder how much further I would be judged for even writing this…
 
I am sick to death to see what religions have done and are still doing to their own people (especially their own wounded) and this world (especially “the world” that is not “the same as they are”)...
 
My heart cries out… “Where is the LOVE - Where is the LOVE?”
 
Thank you for sharing with me…
 
~ Pana

~ Posted 14 January 2017 ~
 
This has been one crazy week... just got off of the self-editing work on my book on Tuesday with completing and including the Table of Contents… and then my grandchildren went back to school this week on Wednesday.  With my daughter in law away, I have been helping out by collecting the children each day and keeping them in the afternoons, feeding, doing homework, etc. until their daddy, my 2nd son, could fetch them in the evenings to take them home.
 
It’s been wonderful, but at the same time, I have still not succeeded in catching up on my backlog of office work, and I have to say that I am very exhausted with just the change of pace and change of routine this week and struggling to cope with so much going on... I am seriously lacking in “me time”.
 
Just over 6 hours sleep the night before last and only 5 last night… so I'm very tired already and it’s just after 8am right now… I’m going to have to try to have an early nap today.
 
The week has been a blur… I don’t remember much about it other than rush-rush-rush and too much anxiety to be able to think straight when I needed to!  My daughter visited the one day with enough roast chicken and veg for three meals for us and a bowl of fresh fruit salad for the children and my youngest son who stays with me… so that was such a blessing that arrived unexpectedly and helped me considerably to get through this week.  I am so grateful to her for her genuine loving care.
 
I also got to be on the “first day back to school” with three of my grandchildren and their daddy.  The youngest of the three went to grade 1 (her first day of “big school”) and I felt very privileged to be there… fought off the tears as she confidently sat at her new desk chatting excitedly with her daddy and her mom who called just in time with a video link, all the way from her business trip in the USA.
 
Not only did I have the incredible privilege of sharing that lovely morning with three of my grandchildren, but I also received a message from my Logotherapy supervisor, Teria, with regards to my book that she has taken over for her editing on it… she wrote:
 
“Wow, I am up to page 20 and riveted! I do not want a thing changed!  I am so deeply moved, all that you write about is so real, so heartbreaking, so impressive to the reader!  If it continues along the same lines, you have a book of huge import.  Forgive me that I cannot devote all my time to reading it all at once.  I will have to read it in stages.”

Is that not the best news ever!  I know there’s still a lot of book for her to read and she’s bound to want me to delete, change, edit, or something, maybe quite a bit still, but for now, I am so excited and grateful for her sacrificing of her own precious time in working on my book, while she has her own to finish, and also for her uplifting letter.

Then the very next day, I receive an incredibly beautiful letter of gratitude from my latest client, thanking me for the difference that our work together has made in his life… and this, while I was still wondering if I was doing a ok with him… My lack of confidence in my own abilities, still telling me that I am “my mother’s (and other abusers) useless idiot… I’ll never amount to anything, etc.”… So, I have to say, his letter has touched and uplifted me deeply and shown me yet again, that I am a somebody and I can make a difference in other people’s lives… A wonderful reminder to me! 

And then, the very next day, I received news of a possible salary increase of R500… so, after a few months in a row of genuine struggle now due to high and mostly unexpected bills, this salary increase would be such a blessing to us (my youngest son and I) and it would make a huge difference.  My son lost his disability (Asperger Syndrome) grant a while back, and for it to be reinstated, he’d have to have certain state doctor tests done, which for me would be insulting to him!  I hate visiting such places as it is, because I am expected to discuss my son’s “weaknesses” in front of him for the doctor there to decide if he is still eligible for the grant. I feel the whole system is dehumanizing to the person needing the grant and can see clearly at this time, that the grant department are making it very difficult for these people to be on their grants and even doing their best to get them off! 

Even though we need that extra income so that we can live a little more comfortably, I struggle with the idea of repeating the insulting interview with the state doctors over and over… constantly telling my son in the process that there is something wrong with him… I just don’t want to do it anymore… so we are down R1300 +/- since he lost his grant and have really been feeling the pinch!

All in all, it’s been an exhausting, crazy, WONDERFUL week, and I am still so grateful to be alive today… still “climbing UP” on my own incredible mountain to healing.

Last night we went to my dear old daddy’s 86th birthday party… another joyful time with family and close friends, but I only went to sleep around 23h30 as a result!  Something I should NEVER do!  Woke at 04h30… so the rest of this day is history if I don’t get to nap early.

I have to catch up on my office work this weekend also… I HAVE TO! 

Thank you for reading and sharing with me

~ Pana

~ Posted 10 January 2017 ~
 
Now I just need to work out for myself, how to "adjust accordingly".  I know I’m still doing something wrong as far as time-management goes.  I don't seem to have much spare time anymore...
 
My work makes me really happy and gives my life so much meaning, but it can’t be my everything… I also need time to paint and sew and work in my garden, etc.
 
At least I did find time over the last “quieter” weeks since the end of November 2016, to finish the self-editing of my book by this last Friday 6th January... and fighting the procrastination to do so also helped a lot… (rehashing over my past to write the book has not been easy at all).
 
I then worked on the Table of Contents for the book until yesterday afternoon.  I had to learn on my own over the last few days, how to do that and still haven't gotten it 100%, but at least I have a list now of all the headings and their correct page numbers at the start of my book... I'm so relieved that it's done at last.   Thanks to my dear friend Cheryl for telling me that it was something that could be done in the first place… that got me inquisitive and I searched out “the how” and although it took up a lot of my time, I got it!
 
I will still need to work out and learn, how to do the referencing in a similar way… and how do I list the labels for the pictures, etc.  Do they go in with the headings, or what?  I could do with some help and advice in these areas, so if anyone out there is good at this sort of thing and doesn’t mind me e-mailing back and forth with my questions as I’m learning, please make a connection through my blog “contacts” here… thank you. 
 
I must say that all the learning is exciting and hopefully I will be able to help others with the things that I have learnt along the way someday.  I'm already helping others with formatting of their works and prettying-up their PowerPoint presentations, but I know that there is so much more I personally could still learn. 
 
I must try to get myself the latest version of “Professor Teaches Office”.  Right now, I fancy myself as a basic computer trainer, so it would be great to have that DVD set so that I could learn more in order to teach more.
 
So now that the book is handed into my Logotherapy supervisor for her editing and sent to my little sister for her comments, etc. I have packed it away on my side until I hear from them again and now I need to concentrate on catching up on my office work over the next +/- two weeks…
 
Always so much to do and so little time…
 
Enjoy the rest of your week everyone and love to all <3 <3 <3
~ Pana

~ Posted 8 January 2017 ~
 
On Friday last week, I finally handed in the remainder of my (self-edited) Manuscript to my Logotherapy trainer, Dr Teria Shantall, who is so kindly going to go through it for me and advise of any more editing changes. 
 
I have also sent a copy of the manuscript to my sister to read through, because I would love to have her honest opinion on how I’ve shared and honoured our lives in it, because, with only 11 months’ difference in age between us, we pretty much shared those awful and nightmarish days and nights of abuse with each other and we became our only best friends during the early years as a result.
 
It still feels so surreal that I have come this far with my book (our book), and that someday it might actually be published. 
 
Soon I will start a fund-raising campaign, to try and raise funds for the publishing.  If anyone can help me raise funds, I’d be so grateful, but as soon as I have set up my own campaign, I will let you all know and ask that you’d share the details of it for me.
 
I believed in this book long before I even began to write it, and I have somehow always known that it was the true purpose for my life. 
 
I pray it will assist many in overcoming the devastating lifelong effects of child abuse and also help to stop abusers and protect the emotional integrity and innocence of little children, through the important messages that I have shared so openly in it from my own life struggles as an adult survivor of child abuse, and my ongoing work to overcome and rise above what my abusers did to me.
 
This weekend, I have so far spent working on formatting the manuscript and today I hope to be able to work out how to use the feature in the Word program, to create a “Table of Contents”…
 
I don’t have a clue, but since a friend told me that this is possible, I am going to do my best to try and work it out for myself to make things easier as further editing may be necessary later on and my Table of Contents is huge and therefore, a whole lot of work to keep updated with adjustments after every editing change in the book.   
 
I believe that something like this can also be done for “Referencing”… ?
 
It’s times like these that I wish I had someone close by to show me how, but I guess I will work it out if I keep at it… I hope.
 
From next week, I will need to start catching up on my office work which is now so far behind that it’s quite scary!  So if I am still absent on my blog for a while, this will be why.
 
I also have a client who I need to concentrate my time on and I am always grateful for all that I learn through working with others.
 
Thank you for sharing my life journey with me.
 
With love to the world out there
~ Pana

I once wrote this poem for my oldest son, because he had so many really difficult struggles when he was younger... 
 
A BEAUTIFUL PEARL
© All rights reserved ~ www.pattyskeys.co.za
 
A pearl, a solid sphere of beauty and sheer delight
Round and smooth and shining, a truly magnificent sight
A bright luster of purity, a gentle glow of love
A witness of God’s creation, His wonder from above
A little piece of grit inside an oyster shell
Irritating and unbearable, if the oyster could only tell
But without complaint or moaning, he bears his misery
And slowly coats that little grit, until it can’t be seen
And from something so awful, a thing of beauty comes
A masterpiece of time, the oyster’s pain, he numbs
We can’t rely on others to cure all our aches and pains
Some effort from within ourselves will heal our hearts again
And from life’s test and trials, so difficult to bear
Can come a thing of beauty, of love and hope and care
So, next time you’re down and miserable and you feel you’re in a rut
Think of the intrepid oyster and his annoying piece of grit
 
(10th May 1995 - For my beloved son, ‘endure it well’. I believe in you and your future.  The Lord has a great plan for your life.  With all my love from Mom)

Thank you for sharing with me today ~ Pana