My answer? I never gave up on me. 

Why? 

Because I wanted me. I wanted to believe I was good, even though I felt worthless. Flute playing helped. As a homeless teen, I carried my flute everywhere. If a place had good reverberation, like an apartment vestibule, I’d take out my flute and play. Shower stalls were good places, too. Rocky canyons, pedestrian underpasses. I couldn’t read music, but I had a good ear and could improvise melodies. Every time I held the flute to my lips, I escaped the pain for a little while, and something beautiful escaped from within me. The music I made was like a life preserver in a tumultuous sea. When I put my flute away, I always felt a little better for a while.

After months of listless wandering about the country as a high school dropout, I realized that was a dead end. I returned home to my mom’s new apartment, my parents were divorced by then, I was enrolled at a new high school, and I joined the band program. Because I couldn’t read music, I sat in the second-to-last chair in the worst band. But I wanted to be good at flute playing, so I asked my mother if I could take private lessons. (She knew nothing about the survival sex or being trafficked, and I didn’t tell her; she didn’t ask.) She said okay. 

It’s amazing how far a little praise and attention goes

I blossomed under the attention of my new flute teacher. It’s amazing how far a little praise and attention go. Under her tutelage, I progressed through the ranks and eventually made it to first chair in concert band, then skipped symphonic band altogether and landed in the honors band. I became co-first chair, soloed with the school orchestra, and earned a music scholarship at DePaul University. That was over fifty years ago. I teach flute to this day.

While flute playing has provided stability over the years, as well as satisfaction, it isn’t the only reason I feel sane and well-adjusted today. Good therapy has been essential. Finding a good therapist takes time. I went through several until landing on one I stayed with off and on for over twenty years. 

I learned that you must interview therapists, try them out for a few sessions, and see if they speak your language. I tried several and was unhappy with all of them. Then I remembered a dream workshop I went to where the speaker, a Jungian analyst, interpreted a recurring nightmare from my childhood that had haunted me for years. She said it was a dream about the imbalance of power: People/things that shouldn’t have power, did (me as a little girl), and people/things that should have power, didn’t (my parents). She said the fact that I remembered it all these years later meant that it still had significance. Boy, did it ever. It became a theme of our working together, uncovering all the ways I was given too much power as a child, all the ways I was treated like an adult when I wasn’t one.

In addition to therapy, many spiritual practices have provided insight into my pain and soul. Growing up, my family didn’t attend church. As an adult, I picked up prayer and meditation on my own. Also, reading tarot cards, the I Ching, Celtic runes, walking a labyrinth, yoga, and qi gong. I practiced Catholicism for a time. Then Unitarian Universalism. You name it, I’ve probably dabbled in it. Then later in life I discovered S-Anon, a Twelve-Step program (which is, essentially, a spiritual program) for those affected by another person’s sexaholism. It has been key in helping me to understand the sexual abuse of my childhood and teen years, and has given me a community of people who share this issue. I am no longer isolated by my memories. 

Working the Steps and Traditions of the Twelve-Step program has enriched me in so many ways. I already believed in a Higher Power, but the words of Step Two: “Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity,” are my rock. It’s a promise that is continually fulfilled. Because let’s face it, even after achieving stability, we all fall apart now and then. But the pieces lay scattered far less longer than they used to, and sometimes, it’s only for moments.

People of integrity who inspire me and give me hope

I also have a deep gratefulness practice. I love the site grateful.org and met the founder, Brother David. I surround myself with, and am attracted to, people who have deep spiritual practices, people I admire and look up to. Lynn Twist, who founded the Soul of Money Institute and the Pachamama Alliance, is another mentor, as is Roshi Joan of the Buddhist Upaya Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. These are people of integrity who inspire me and give me hope.

And so, while I had a rough start in life, as many of us have, I’ve made peace with my past, as I believe we all can. It takes work and dedication—it requires a commitment to ourselves. And it is so worth it. In my Twelve Step program, we end every meeting with the Serenity prayer and these words: “It works if you work it, and you’re worth it, so work it.” 

I am very happy. I have a good life. I’ve done incredibly bad things, have made poor choices, been done to as a victim, and done to others in my pain and rage, but today I am free of all that. Self-forgiveness is key. And I wouldn’t have found self-forgiveness and self-love without hard work, perseverance, and the determination never to give up on myself. 

Through it all, flute playing has been a constant. It still gives me joy. So many things do. But flute playing gave me a goal, something to work towards. I didn’t understand until many years later that I am inherently good, even without being good at playing the flute. I am good because I am me, and I have so much to be grateful for.

As Brother David says, it isn’t happiness that makes me grateful; it is gratefulness that makes me happy. 

Photo by Javardh on Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Polly Hansen

When they said to fill the bathtub to have drinking water on hand, I thought it was overkill

When they said to fill the bathtub to have drinking water on hand, I thought it was overkill. I didn’t think Helene would make it this far inland. Won’t all the mountains be a deterrence? But what do I know? I’d never been through a hurricane before. It had been raining heavily for a couple of days already in Asheville, North Carolina, and though there hadn’t been any lightning and thunder, which was what I thought would cause a power outage, I filled the tub and two large soup pots, thinking, might as well.

Thursday night as the wind hissed at the windows and rain continued to pour I had visions of water flooding the crawl space and rising through the furnace vents. At four in the morning, we were awoken by the carbon monoxide detectors beeping loudly because the power had gone off. I went around the house lighting candles. We have an electric stove but a gas fireplace. I heated water over it and made my husband a mug of coffee just in time. He was so thankful; he called me a genius. I spent the entire day sitting at my desk, watching the rain fly sideways and the wind lash the trees and bushes. A birdie approached my windowsill under the patio roof and huddled there. My cell phone service died. I couldn’t play my NYT word games. I couldn’t write. I couldn’t read. I just sat and stared. 

And then nothing came out of the faucet

The rain stopped around three in the afternoon. We live on a hill, and the grocery store parking lot at the bottom was flooded. That evening, we drove into downtown Asheville looking for WiFi and spotted fifty or so people outside the Moxy Hotel staring at their phones.

“Must be a hotspot,” my husband said. I hopped out while he waited in the car with the dogs. I was able to text my daughter. She texted back. It felt so good—communication from the outside world. Phone calls still wouldn’t go through. It was 7:25 p.m. A patrol car drove by enforcing a 7:30 p.m. curfew. We had no idea yet of the devastation just a mile west of us. The River Arts District was gone. The life’s work of three hundred artists in the mile-long stretch was destroyed. Swannanoa. Black Mountain.

By Sunday afternoon, the potable water in the soup pots was gone, and the water in the old bathtub looked funky. Previous owners had painted the tub, and the coating was coming off, bits of it floating on the surface, but at least we could flush the toilets with it.

Sunday evening, we stood in the water distribution line with five hundred people, waiting for the supply truck to arrive. I walked and walked to find the end of the line; more people lined up behind us. We chatted pleasantly, exchanging stories. I discovered the woman beside me was a published poet who taught at UNC-Ashevillle. She gave me her business card. (A poet with a business card!) I saw a friend who’d been standing in line for two hours. She needed to use the bathroom. We walked up the hill to my house. “Sorry about the state of the toilet,” I said, but she understood. We were all conserving water.

On Monday morning, I tried walking around my neighborhood. Massive trees blocked the roads, making every route I usually took with my dogs impassable. 

We gathered on my neighbor’s lawn and exchanged updates—Harris Teeter grocery store is giving away free ice. The gas station across from Chick-fil-A is open; there’s a long line, but they’ve reserved two pumps for walk-ups with cans. Ace Hardware is open, but they don’t have power, so they can’t refill propane tanks. We’d run out of propane the second night. I was cooking meals on the fireplace. I’d spilled eggs into the grate and tried not to use water to clean it up.

 Our neighbor gave us a transistor radio. We tuned in for every local news update. My husband was now getting spotty cell service. My sister texted a photo of the River Arts District. It was gone, completely underwater. I cried.

From spending so much time with neighbors who moved in two years ago, I learned that one of their daughters plays the flute. I went home, grabbed mine, and we played a duet together. I delivered ice to an elderly couple across the street. I didn’t know he was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. I met the young couple two houses down. They’d moved in three months earlier, and I hadn’t even known. We went over to a different neighbor’s house, just stopped in to say hello, and they welcomed us onto their patio. We’d been meaning to do that for three years. The itch to play my NYT games was gone, replaced by this hunger for news and community.

All week long, we got tips from one another and helped one another. Someone a few blocks down had siphoned water from a creek behind his house and was running it into the street so people could fill buckets for flushing toilets. My neighbor grilled a massive number of ribs that had thawed and gave them to my husband, who gave some to our neighbors. Before we’d been able to get gas, my husband rode his bike to Harris Teeter but couldn’t fit ice bags into the backpack. A woman noticed. “What’s your address? I’ll deliver it for you.” She did. All week, everyone was kind, helpful, and friendly. 

With no power or Internet, I couldn’t work remotely. I tried to read but couldn’t read more than a few sentences before putting the book down. I was too tired to nap. All our energy was spent searching for water, ice, and food, listening to updates, talking with friends and strangers—anyone. Everyone.

Sirens rang out constantly. With no traffic lights on the busy four-lane street two blocks away, drivers were barreling through intersections. Even my husband did that the first evening we went looking for Wi-Fi. “Sorry, sorry. I forgot,” he said when I yelled at him. Huge Army supply airplanes flew overhead. Helicopters crisscrossed the sky. 

Friday afternoon, eight days after we lost power, my husband threw open the screen door. “Our power’s back!” The Duke Energy guys were working on the poles at the end of our block as I watched from our front porch. I danced in the front yard, tears trickling down my cheeks, and clapped for the Duke Energy guy driving by in his truck. He saluted and waved. Our cell phone service was restored. We got Internet, though a weak signal, but still. I turned on the TV. I watched the news and saw the horrible devastation. We tuned in to a TV show. It was soothing. It felt good. 

Afterward, I looked out the kitchen window and saw my neighbors chatting with the young couple on the front lawn. We went over to join them. I didn’t want to lose the connections we’d made the week after Helene destroyed so many lives. But already, something had shifted. We no longer depended on one another to survive.

A week has passed now.  We’ve all gone back inside our houses. The grocery store down the block has opened. At the checkout counter, I was about to leave when I paused and asked the clerk, “How are you doing?” She smiled wearily and said okay. I asked if she had power back, and she said yes, but without it, all week her kids had said, “Going out to play, Mom.” But with power and cell service restored, they were once again glued to their phones. “I’m thinking of stealing the modem,” she laughed, but it seemed like she was only half kidding.

I want to remember the lessons of Helene—to get my face out of my screen, to look up and see the person I am facing, to be curious about the stranger before me, a possible friend if I take time to notice, to be present to my community instead of passing through it glued to my phone. 

FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel spent all week in Asheville to oversee recovery efforts. She said, “In any crisis, communication is a lifeline. We must use this storm to understand ways we can make this infrastructure more resilient and more accessible in the future.” 

Yes, of course. But I use this storm to remind me that the lifeline of communication includes talking in person. We can so often feel lost without technology—and we often are. But it means nothing if in the end we lose the most important thing of all: human connection. 

Photos by P. Hansen

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Polly Hansen

Even while homeless, whether crawling on all fours lost in a bramble bush on a mountainside for hours or on the streets of San Francisco searching for a place to sleep, I always hoped for safety, for a way out of the mess I’d gotten myself into.

Then, living on my own in an apartment at age seventeen, eating powdered milk and oatmeal three times a day because I couldn’t afford groceries, I never considered suicide an option.

Music was my refuge

Flute playing saved me. The vestibule in my apartment building had terrific reverberation. I’d play there for hours, improvising, letting out pain, sorrow, and anguish. Music was my refuge.

Once I returned to high school as a junior, I made flute performance my career goal. I couldn’t read sheet music and learned how. I didn’t know what a scale was and learned all of them in the Circle of Fifths. Music gave me guidance, direction, something to strive for, to be good at. I worked hard and achieved accolades. But inside I was still suffering.

Only by facing gut-wrenching pain, by freefalling into that bottomless pit of despair did I move from surviving to thriving. I didn’t do it alone. I had a guide, a good therapist. And then I found another good therapist. I worked hard on my recovery for decades.

I vowed in the future to interview therapists

Finding effective practitioners took trial and error. After one horrible experience where the corrupt psychologist added insult to injury, and who ultimately had his license revoked, I vowed in the future to interview therapists. At this point, I was in my late twenties. One counselor made me feel like I was under a microscope and kept saying “fascinating, fascinating.” Though flattered, I knew that wasn’t what I needed. The other kept moving around so much in her seat I couldn’t concentrate and wanted her to just settle down.

Finally, I remembered the Adlerian dream psychologist who was a speaker at an evening workshop I attended. She asked for examples of recurring dreams. I shared a nightmare from my childhood that continued to baffle me. She gave me an analysis on the spot that made total sense, saying the balance of power in my life was all out of whack. Small things had power they shouldn’t have; big things had no power at all; the small thing was me wielding excessive authority, the big things were my parents showing no authority at all. As a child, my psyche visualized the terror of being in Toxic Abusive Relationships (TAR).

I stay current, present, and alive in the moment

It took years to clean out the basement of my emotional baggage, but finally every corner was whitewashed and empty. I was well on my way towards wholeness. Since then, I’ve had to go down into that basement and clean out the cobwebs, making sure nothing is accumulating down there. I stay current, present, and alive in the moment. I practice gratefulness and experience joy. I no longer obsess about whether people like me or think I’m weird. No. I love me now. I have found self-forgiveness and intimacy with my soul and my Higher Power.

Much of my sustained recovery is due to joining the S-Anon Twelve Step program for those affected by another person’s sex addiction. As a former trafficking and abuse victim, S-Anon has provided a safe place to feel difficult emotions in community with other victims of behavior caused by sexaholism. I’m not isolated anymore, don’t feel crazy like I used to. I have serenity and peace in my life daily. I love my world, my existence and know I’m not alone and that I have friends who understand me and accept me without judgement.

When I was in my twenties, I’d catch glimmers of hope. I might be staring at the toaster waiting for my breakfast to pop up when a feeling of joy would slide across my heart for a second then disappear, fleeting, but real. When I reported this to my therapist, she was delighted. “That’s progress.” I didn’t believe her. It was so brief, so momentary in a sea of depression. She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. In the future, those moments will last longer until one day, they’ll be your existence.”

She gave me hope

She gave me hope. That’s what I want to give you. This world, this universe is filled with love and compassion that resides in your heart and in the hearts of good people everywhere. In therapy, I cracked open my heart and let out all the black gunk. It was terrifying. Sometimes I hyperventilated, once I sat a long time in the waiting room after my session to get a grip before walking out to my car. It was all worth it, because only by accessing the darkness can you access the light, and believe me, there is so much light within you, so much love.

I wanted me—all of me—the light and the dark. Today, the darkness is a memory, like childbirth; a memory of agony, not the agony itself.

I am the victor, not the victim. I have conquered those deep, dark, scary feelings and memories. It wasn’t easy, and, like I say, I had help from good people with the patience and skill necessary to see me through. I have forgiven myself, and even forgiven those who hurt me.

I know that may sound crazy. You may be thinking never would I ever forgive that so-and-so. Believe me, it took time. But whether you forgive someone who hurt you is not as important as forgiving yourself. That’s where real healing begins–forgiving ourselves, discovering who we are, and recovering joy. The way you do that is slowly, one day, one breath at a time.

Polly Hansen’s unpublished memoir “A Minor, Unaccompanied: Memoir of a Teen Musician’s Odyssey,” won Memoir Magazine’s 2022 coming-of-age Memoir Prize for Books. Her work is published in Newsweek, The Sun and numerous other journals. She was a finalist in the 2023 Doris Betts Fiction Prize and lives in Asheville, NC with her husband and two black dogs often mistaken for small black bears on leashes. You can find her at pollyhansen.com and @9ofPentacles.

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Polly Hansen