George Caywood

The following thoughts have helped me.

-I suffered painfully as a boy. I was abused by every abuse a young boy can experience. My trouble was that I accepted abuse as normal home life. I I had nothing to which I could compare my my experiences so I could recognize my abuse as abuse.

-I am 77 now. It has only been the last 10 or 15 years that I have realized that it would help me to release my deepest pains in a systematic grief process. I suppose that grief process will continue as long as I live. I experience my grief as the loss of my boyhood.

-When I was 15, my dad shot himself with my gun. At the time the suicide I was away from my Coronado, Ca home. My older sister and I were in Tucson to attend my uncle’s wedding. After we heard the news we called the pastor of the Tucson Baptist Church. I was sitting on one end of the couch and my sister was on the other end. I was sobbing but my sister was sitting there quietly. The pastor looked at the two of us and said, “Judy is taking this better than George. That ended my crying.

-Writing this is helping me do some of the grieving I did not get to do as a boy.

-I told my therapist the story back a few decades the story of my Dad’s suicide. When I finished She said “You told me about your father’s suicide with the same way you would tell me about last night’s ballgame.”

-After I realized how my words and Mood so often did seem appropriate to the subject of that which I was expressing, I took some steps. A local church loaned me a key to their sanctuary. Over and over again, at 3:00 AM, I used  the I used the sanctuary to shout and scream out my pain and sense of betrayal. I focused on any horrible memory that came to mind. Instead of the church I would sometimes sit in my car at some isolated parking lot. Cars are sound proof to keep driving noise out. The same soundproofing also kept my screaming in.

-I also became active in a 12 Step program. In meetings I was given a sense that my case was not unusual at all. I also found many friends that were  doing the same work I was doing.

– I also used a grief professional. She was incredibly helpful.

-There seems to be something in my psychological makeup that wouldn’t let my deep internal grief surface until I was prepared  to deal with it. I was never overwhelmed.

– The thing that  made me more and more able to dealwith my grief was the love, experience and commitment of the people in my program meetings. They were ready 24/7 to help me if I needed it.