A Home

My home is my body.
When it was violated,
I was made homeless.
I couldn’t live in a home that had been so invaded and desecrated.
It made me hate it.
So, I have been living homeless –
Body-less. Seemingly Painless.

As a child — I never wanted to go home.
To my physical home.
To my parents’ home.
Going home meant entering their world,
A world where I was alone and powerless.
I felt I had –
No Home. No Me.
Meet Nome.

Nome is a “part” of me and was for a long time called “the Girl with no Name.” She later became Nome. And by my therapist “refusing” to remember that the name was not Naomi, but Nome — the name Naomi was adopted (and even liked). Naomi has always been our “Pain-Princess.” Now called Naomi the Bear. For a long time, she engaged in a lot of self-harm. Now she is responsible for self-care strategies.

This poem and the drawing were created about 10 years ago. I published both in my poetry/picture book: I AM HAPPY. The Journey. A book, just like my other book, HERE & GONE… Fragments from a Life Partially Unlived, dedicated to the survival, navigating, and thriving during and after abuse and violence.

Do I still live with “parts”? Yes, but then I think we all do. It is not a question of “having parts” or not, it is a question of how well we communicate internally with “the whole of us”. I have come to believe that having parts and dissociating are two different things. More about that in another post.

Do I still dissociate? Yes. But then again, we all do. The difference between trauma induced dissociation (TID) and “normal” dissociation is the level of control you have over it. If you can choose to dissociate then it is not usually a problem, if it just happens, it can be a problem.

In both my books I share a lot about my own journey out of the “mist of dissociation”. They were both published in 2023. I have learned more since, but I think they give an excellent introduction to a lot of important topics, like child sexual abuse, dissociation, child sexual exploitation, survivalship, “heling” (wholing) oneself in different ways, trauma therapy, iatrogenic harm, etc.

Adding: I am a person that speaks about hard things. With no shame. If you need someone to speak to, for “therapy”, recovery work, support, deep dives, figuring out life, whatever it is and whatever you want to call it. Contact me.