Therapy Assignment – Time Line

* The therapy assignment is to make a time line of events, good bad and neutral so that the therapist can have a good idea of how life progressed and which events may have had the most impact on me as a child and now as an adult. * I had to start a new page called Time Line to host all of these entries. I’ve removed the names and put in initials. An outline of the family is on the page called Time Line.

So here goes-

The first memory of sexual touch is age 3 by my male cousin only 3 years older than myself. My grandmother walked in and caught him but turned around, closed the door and left. I knew something wrong happened so I lay on my belly and coloured a picture of Tom and Jerry in the coloring book. This first touch lead to the first memory of physical abuse by my mother. If I were to take a guess it is that first memory of physical abuse that brought about DID. It is hard for a three year old mind to comprehend the pain caused by a dowel rod against the back as the mother screams that I should never allow anyone to touch me like that.

At the time my mother and I were living with my Aunty S, a cruel no good, self-centered, compulsive gambler and soon to be alcoholic. She had her own issues with the family (her sexuality) but she never really talked about it much. She sure as heck brought about a lot of turmoil for me and my sister. She would chase us into a corner and punch AT us. She never hit us just punched AT us. It was terrifying. Her partner’s name was the same as my birth name and the same as my grandmother’s name. We lived with Aunty S on and off for years but I’m not really certain why as the mother was working for GM and had been for awhile.

My next memory is of the second grade. We lived in a 2 bedroom apartment where I shared a room with my sister who is 3 years older than me. We stayed there for a bit. That house has horrible memories. That’s where I remember a lot of the physical abuse (dowel rods on the hands and back). I went to a Catholic School with the typical horrible nuns. I have good memories of school but not home. At school we went to field trips. We went swimming once a week. I can remember sitting at the table with a towel around me eating hard oatmeal cookies and a Dixie cup of Kool-aid. It’s a nice memory. We swam a lot, so much so that my grandfather said I was a fish. That was a compliment coming from him. He didn’t mean it badly at all. He was quite proud of his little swimmers (my sister and me). He grew up swimming at Nights Town Soldiers and Sailors Children’s Home. He liked that place a lot.

That’s all for today.

Time Line – what happened and when
Therapy Assignment
Wednesday, May 02, 2007-7:58PM EST