Stop Child Abuse Now (SCAN) - 1743

Tonight's special guest is Heather Jensen from Cheyenne, Wyoming, a child abuse survivor and author of an upcoming book with the working title, "Slowly Turn the Kaleidoscope." She's also serving as NAASCA's Wyoming Ambassador. As a little girl, Heather became hide-and-seek adept. She had plenty of incentive. The penalty for discovery was rape. She called her rapist 'The Monster' because he acted like one. He was her father. By the time she was five or six she prayed to die and began to dissociate, fracturing herself into several selves so she could hide deep inside where no one could ever find her. Starting at age 13 Heather felt fierce hatred for her father and contempt for her mother, and misunderstood where it was coming from. When she grew up she got married, had three children and a decent life. But she was hypervigilant, severly depression and troubled. She never, ever felt safe. When Heather turned thirty, memories cascaded in from everywhere. Flashbacks kicked in from random triggers, and all the trapped emotions and painful body memories came flooding out. Heather had a high score on a Dissociation assessment, and worked to heal the trauma with her therapist through EMDR, choosing to handle the “ego states” on her own. Seventeen years later all her selves are healed and mended, but she occasionally does feel like decisions are being made and ideas are being conceived outside of her conscious mind. In fact, she feels like a Kaleidoscope. Every day she's slightly different from the Heather of the day before, but she's always Heather. Today she's found peace, forgiveness, and hope .. and she didn't even know she was seeking them.