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Grief Work

by | Jul 15, 2022 | ACA Toolbox, ComLine

I've been in ACA since April 2021. Since this past January, I've been incarcerated as a Federal inmate in a low-security prison for a sex crime I felt I was powerless to avoid. Those words are in our BRB - "Some ACA's are in prison for the rest of their lives for a sex crime they felt they were powerless to avoid". I get chills every time I read that line and am immensely grateful it is not me. I am here for 5 years, and as an ACA with Complex-PTSD, it feels like an eternity with the pains and torments I must deal with in here.

My sex crime forced me to come out of denial that I was an ACA and a survivor of a sex crime. I've been living my whole life powered by adrenaline rushes to keep me running at 300 percent, because anything slower would mean my mind would have to confront a feeling or an emotion, and being busy and engrossed in technical work allowed me to drown out any possibility of confronting reality: that I was severely impacted as a child by my mother's alcoholism, the fact that I was violently abused sexually by a neighbor when I was just 8 years old.

Grief work has helped me understand what my trauma type was, which for me is "Flight", and my subcategory "Flight/Fawn". Studying my trauma has helped me identify my defense characteristics of being obsessive/compulsive, being panicky, rushing, worrying; being an adrenaline junkie, a workaholic, miromanger who is compelled by perfectionism, and possibly having ADHD. The sad thing is that as an ACA/trauma survivor, I never knew I was doing any of this in response to something that was done to me. I never knew! And I constantly ask myself, what could have I done differently?

One of my greatest strengths is my wife and children. ACA recovery has helped me understand that one of the greatest harms done to me as a child was the violation of trust resulting in feeling unsafe from an emotional standpoint. I would also go on to feel unsafe physically after being raped but had no understanding of this until I entered recovery. One key part of my recovery is relational healing, starting with the relationship with my wife. As an ACA survivor of child abuse, I need that one person who is not a therapist that I can share everything with, get feedback when I elect for it, and regain my feeling of safety and trust. The more I can do that, the more grief work I'll be able to complete and press forward with the greatest rewards of ACA recovery. I pray to my Higher Power each day for an early release that will reunite me with my family and allow me to press forward with ACA recovery work, along with rejoining my brothers and sisters in ACA recovery.

Jon F

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