[15 Jan 2009|01:50pm] begentlewithyou I have a frequent and odd occurence and I am wondering if I am unique or if it is common to others. I'm not exactly sure how to describe it, so I'll do my best to be succinct. I have been aware of it for about 20 years Often when dealing with *stress, *confusion, *exposure to triggers, *encountering addicitve stimuli (seeing things that remind me of my addictions, so this can be my addicitve stuff or it can be stuff that is "once or twice removed" from the actual addicitve things), or *when I am just trying to think deeply to understand my life or thought patterns, I can feel the back of my brain going numb. This is an internal sensation. Years of physical abuse was part of the formulation of my PTSD, and I participated in therapeutic massage as a way of identifying and dealing with "cellular memory" or "muscle memory." I mention that because this sensation within my brain feels different from cellular memory. I don't lose awareness of my surroundings, so it does not appear to be dissociative, but it might have once been; i seem to border on a trance or altered state when i feel it. Maybe i just deal with it differently now than i did in the past...? Anyway, has anyone else experienced this sensation of internal, back-of-the-brain numbing? post comment

Anybody home? [07 Jan 2009|07:39pm] begentlewithyou Well - the last entry I see is pretty old. Does anybody use this meeting place? Hello? (hello....hello.....hello....) I'm a survivor living in an area without physical meetings close by. Probably will start one - either in this fellowship or a similar one (I attended ISA in another state for several years). Thought an online connection would be nice support, but I'm new to SIA and Livejournal and don't know what to expect from either. Time will tell! post comment

New! [27 Mar 2007|12:05am] sadalmelek It seems this list isn't in use? Or am I too sleepy and missing it? Please excuse me if I am! I would like to introduce myself, but I want to make sure that I am not speaking to myself (again), post comment

can anyone help me out here? [15 Jan 2007|03:34am] balletbunny49 Hi all, again my name is Stephany and I'm an incest survivor I begun my recovery process about a year ago and I think I posted my story here already. I'm getting somewhat better I hope thanx to the help of a wonderful therapist and these online meetings the thing I was wondering is if anyone could provide me with information about incest crossing generational line such as fathers who abuse daughters and then go on to abuse granddaughters for example. any info or stats or cases would be awesome also i was wondering if there were any tips as to how to go about talking about the subject to someone if u have suspicions that they may have gone through the same ordeal as have many of us who have come here. I for one am no stranger to the fact that this subject is a very painful one and very difficult to admit to ourselves and even worse others that it was real and it happened. I guess is that I am trying to understand now if there was somewhat of a pattern involving what happened to me and maybe the hope of offering a fresh start or understanding in the case of another who is just like me. Thank you all for any help u can give. Steph post comment

Hello Everyone [24 Jan 2006|05:24pm] angerooni [ mood | angry ] Hello all, my name is Anne. This is my first time here and I will also be attending a live meeting soon. I'm not sure where to start because I thought I was over all of the stuff from childhood but it came back and bit me in the butt. I started having panic attacks about 2 years ago out of the blue. There are no triggers for the attacks, it's like my mind is attacking me. I'm on medication now but still have them occasionally. Anyhow, I believe now that I'll never really be over the sexual abuse of my younger years and that I need to learn some way to deal with and where to put it all so I can live. I was abused by my father's sister when I was about 8-12 years old. I won't go into detail but I will say that it was extreme. Her fiance' also abused me but much less extreme and for a shorter time. She found out and married him anyway. Still amazes me. When I hit my teen years, she just stopped, not sure why, but was glad. We were very close and remained close throughout my adolesence while I went through my drug and slut years. Won't go into detail, take all day. I found AA at 20 and when I got clean all of the memories came to the surface like a bomb. I finally told my mother and begged her not to confront her because I still felt like a victim and was scared of what would happen. So, I guess I just buried it after that all over again. I got married, had 2 kids and going through all of that kept my mind off things for awhile. Then I started drinking, never was a big drinker but boy did I like it. Became a really bad habit for awhile. Then the panic attacks came, I suspect partially from drinking so much. I'm pretty good at self-inventory being in AA and all that. So, I realized this was really killing me and I needed to confront my abuser. I had not spoken to her since I was 20 and no one (except my Mom) had any idea why. It took me a year but I finally got the courage to call her. Armed with my Chardonnay and cigarettes, I did it. She denied, then admitted, then told me I must have wanted it.... The confrontation did not have the desired affect, I thought it would make me feel better but I only felt worse. I finally told my Dad shortly after that and he was blown away. Her biggest fear was her parents finding out, my grandparents who I have also been close to. So, she decided to tell them that I was going around spreading lies about her.... I had a confrontation with my grandmother who tells me I am vicious and evil and so what if it did happen, it was so long ago.... Here I am a victim again! And I am angry, so so angry. I don't know what to do next. My relationship with my grandparents is ruined and they are in bad health so I may never see them again. My Dad is avoiding me because he just can't deal with it and I have no support from anywhere. Sorry to go on so long, I could fill a book...... 1 comment|post comment

[04 Oct 2005|07:58pm] balletbunny49 Hi Everyone, My name is Stephany I'm not really sure how to start this since it's my first time doing anything like this. I am currently in my first year of college at FIU and since I have no car I obviously can't make it to physical meetings. I guess my story starts when I was younger in that I was often molested by my grandfather until about the age of fourteen when I finally got the courage to try and stop him fortunately I was never raped and in finally standing up to him I thought I would be ok. However I still feel like it's my fault sometimes in that I should have tried to stand up to him before instead of punking out and letting him exploit me for all these years I also feel guilty in that I feel as if I ruined our relationship because since then we no longer speak and in the moments in which I was molested it seemed like the only times in which he ever gave me any affection I never told anyone because I was always raised in fear of him so much so that with one word he could just shut me up. I've tried to push all those memories as far to the back of my mind as possible but lately I've noticed that I'm really not as ok as I thought since lately I've begun to have nightmares again which are often memories of the different occasions in which I was molested I was diagnosed previously with depression and stopped therapy before coming to school. I've noticed that it is next to impossible for me to trust people and now being out on my own am afraid that it will affect the new realtionships that I am forming here at college and my low self esteem doesn't help either. I guess the reason for my coming here is that I feel as if very few people would understand what I'm going through and feel even more alone than ever so I guess I'm just sayin that I want to get better and thaks for accepting me at these meetings if you'll have me because I don't want to feel alone and sad anymore and I want to sleep well again. 1 comment|post comment

My Life [16 Aug 2005|09:39pm] pibeltrao [ mood | sad ] Hello Everyone I'm new in the SIA community... I'm trying to go to some meeting at Berkeley or Oakland, but I haven't had any free time to do it yet hehe.... I'll try to explain everything that I've been through during my childhood... I was sexually abused by my father... starting by the age of 7 to 10, which I was basically molested... by the age of 11 I was first raped by my father as well, and that's basically when things started to get worse, he would go after me every single night, and my mom would never notice anything was wrong... and that happen all the time until I was 15, he was threatening me with a gun in case I would open my mouth and tell someone what was going on... by the age of 15 I told my best friend what was going on.. and she helped me to tell my family about everything. I am from brazil and I had to move to US, so i could feel safe, cuse i couldn't stay there, cuse if he found out where I was, and knew that my family knew everything he would kill me, and my family as well, so me and my family we had to come to US to be sure that we we're safe... I am not sure still what are my feeling about that, I am really confused about my feelings... sometimes I blame myself because I never said no, at least I don't remember ever saying no...I also feel ashamed of everything, scared... I have a real low self stem, and I also eat whenever I get desperate about something... many times I go over depression, sometimes I am scared in getting into relationships...it's just tough right now... I just hope things will get better soon... thanks for accepting me at the SIA online meetings... post comment

Fun with service positions! [11 Jul 2005|01:42pm] sia_secretary These are the service positions we need to fill: SECRETARY - That's me! I've been doing it since I started this meeting, and I need to stop hogging all the service and give someone else the reins. Usually this is a six-month service position, and it's usually recommended that anyone who wants to be secretary have been in the program for at least six months themselves, and have some familiarity with how the meeting is run. The secretary's job around here is basically: * send out a form letter to people who ask for information, and one to welcome newcomers * announce any motions that people make, on the list and here at the business meeting, and then remember to close discussion and call for a vote a week later (I hardly EVER remember to do this, personally... good thing we rarely have any business to discuss!) * approve new subscriptions by plugging their email address in at http://lists.riseup.net/www/review/sia and http://lists.riseup.net/www/review/sia-discussion * try to keep up with emails in case anyone needs any help There's also a special wrinkle right now... when the SIA World Service Office put our email address up on their site, somehow, it ended up worded in such a way that a lot of people think that this is where they go for information on ANY SIA meeting. So right now, the secretary's email address gets quite a few emails a week asking things like "I live in Saint Bernard, Alaska, can you tell me where the meetings around here are?" But I'm working with them right now to, uh, fix that. Anyway, you don't have to do anything in particular with these, just delete them. (I'm answering them until we find a better solution!) TREASURER - We never got one of these, so you'll be the first! I believe that it's standard in 12-step groups for this person to have been around the meeting for a while and have some time in recovery under their belts. I've heard anywhere between six months and two years, depending on the program, and I've never heard a particular number for SIA. I think it's normally six months' attendance, and it's a six-month commitment. The treasurer, in theory, would: * "pass the basket" once a week by emailing the group with something like (I'm copying from our supposedly-weekly info mailing here): "Our seventh tradition says we are self-supporting through our own voluntary contributions. Since we are an online meeting, we do not have literature you can order; you can order SIA literature directly from the World Service Office at http://www.siawso.org. Seventh tradition funds go to help SIA pay rent, manage its pen pal program and speaker's bureau, and produce outreach materials, as well as to make donations to riseup.net and livejournal.com to fund the spaces this list uses." And some information about how this is done: we have a paypal account (no, really, we do! we just don't use it!) at um... oh, it's under my email address, but that can easily be changed to the treasurer's email address plus the meeting's address, or something. So we could even have a freaking button that people could click to put a dollar (or more, or whatever) in the virtual basket at our website, or anywhere we liked. Probably even in an email. * Use that PayPal account to make monthly donations to the SIA World Service Office, livejournal, and riseup.net, in whatever percentages our group chose. LITERATURE PERSON: Well, why not? This is usually not such a stringent position - as far as I know we don't require the literature person to have any particular amount of time in the program or the meeting. Newcomers are welcome to do this, and service is a really great way to get and stay involved in the program, give something back, and learn more about how SIA works. The literature person would: * Post the weekly mailings (that's the one I just sent out, the one I never, ever, ever sent out weekly. It just involves forwarding it or pasting it into a new email and sending it to sia@lists.riseup.net.) * Becoming the contact person for the meeting and getting SIA's Bulletin and flyers in the mail (that is, telling SIA your mailing address and which meeting you represent) * Transcribe the SIA Bulletin for the list when it comes - it is usually four to six pages and has stuff like a piece by SIA's co-founder Linda D., letters from SIA members around the world, and announcements about upcoming events; * Transcribe any flyers about upcoming SIA conferences, retreats, and so on. Any takers? Any questions? 3 comments|post comment

The second piece of business ever [03 May 2005|02:07pm] sia_secretary So, I just sent out the portions of riseup.net's bulletin which I thought were relevant to our little community here. But there were also two other items in the bulletin. One item was for people who have email accounts or websites and things with riseup.net. That is, if your website or email address has "riseup.net" in it. For example, that doesn't include me because although I'm emailing this list at riseup.net, my email address is at sbcglobal.net. (In other words, if this doesn't make sense to you, it doesn't affect you :) ) And the other item was an announcement about some new service they're starting called "Activista," which I think is like a highly specialized search engine that makes it easy to find progressive political information, since that's what they mainly traffic in. Which also doesn't involve us per se, because the whateverth tradition... hold on, let me find it... as the tenth tradition says, "Survivors of Incest Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the SIA name ought never be drawn into public controversy." So my question is, should I just forward their (rare) bulletins to the list because they're hosting our space, or should I be picking out any information that concerns us and leaving the rest alone? My instinct (obviously, since this is what I did) was to pick out what seemed relevant and leave things that seemed confusing or might conflict with our traditions or whatever. But then I thought, you know, I've gone to meetings at community centers and things, and there are times when the community center will give us a flyer announcing that so-and-so who works there is leaving, or a newsletter talking about what the community center is doing right now. And I think that in that situation I would probably also downplay it... maybe just make an announcement like, "This community center gave us some flyers about their upcoming event, and if anyone is interested they can come see me after the meeting".... Okay, maybe I just answered my own question :) But I would also love to hear any discussion/input/ideas about whether this violates the traditions or not. Discussion will be open here for one week; if we don't have a motion on the table by then, we'll just close the discussion and move it back to the list if people want to talk more about this. 2 comments|post comment

Calling the vote [26 Oct 2004|10:49pm] sia_secretary Poll #373551 Posting the Promises On Our Website Open to: Friends, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 9 Shall we? View Answers Yes, let's 6 (66.7%) No, let's not 1 (11.1%) I abstain from voting 2 (22.2%) post comment

The first piece of business ever [16 Oct 2004|12:25pm] sia_secretary [ mood | happy ] So, our website lists the 12 steps and the traditions and a whole bunch of other stuff we read in our meeting as well as other information, but apparently it doesn't list the promises. Should we list the promises on there? To reiterate the business meeting info: I think you have to create a livejournal account (if you don't already have one you want to use here) in order to discuss this issue (by clicking "post comment" here) or vote on it (when we come to that!). We have a week (starting with the date on this post) for any comments or discussion, and then we have to make a motion and we have another week to vote on it. Does that make sense? You can also post any questions about how this works here :-) 2 comments|post comment

Welcome to the SIA Business Meeting! [10 Mar 2004|12:14pm] sia_secretary Just like the regular meeting, the business meeting is ongoing. Anyone can make a motion here at any time, as long as there isn't already a motion on the floor for discussion. Here's how it works: If you are a member of the SIA list, create a free livejournal account (if you don't already have one you want to use) and join this community. Post here, state your motion or the issue you want to raise for discussion, and then post to the SIA list announcing it. If you made a motion, someone else has to come here, click "post comment" and second your motion. If nobody seconds it, the motion is automatically dropped after a week has passed. If you just raised an issue for discussion, the meeting has a week to discuss it here by posting comments. If a motion is seconded, the secretary (whoever is running the meeting) restates the motion without rewording it. The motion is thrown open for discussion; the secretary posts to the SIA list announcing that everyone has a week to discuss the motion via "post comment" on the business page. (Not by posting a new message here!) After a week has passed, the secretary calls the vote by posting another message to the SIA list and setting up a poll on the subject here. Everyone has a week to vote, after which the secretary closes the poll and announces the results on the SIA list. You can read more about Robert's Rules of Order on our website. You certainly don't have to have all the rules memorized, but they can be handy to know when you're discussing an issue here. 2 comments|post comment

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