33 Quotes by Olga Trujillo

Controlling my environment was still a compelling need for me. I did everything I could to not be surprised by anything...Looking back, I think that my need to predict how my day was going to unfold was a direct response to the amount of chaos in my childhood.

As I was growing up, no one in my family got their needs met through respectful negotiation and compromise. The only victories I had ever seen my mom achieve were small, and she had accomplished them through manipulation, which was one of the few techniques she had for surviving her relationship with my father. Later, after his death, manipulation had become a way of life for her. It became innate for me too, even though I wanted her to be more direct, and I hated it when she manipulated me.

I came to understand intellectually that my mind used dissociation as a way to protect me from knowing things. Dr. Summer repeatedly explained, "If you had woken up every morning and knew that later that day or evening you would be abused, you would have killed yourself". I would always nod, as if in agreement. It all made sense in a theoretical way, but I could not and did not want to truly understand or accept what had happened to me.

It upset him to see my family spend so much money and watch me rescue them. He didn't like bailing my mom out of the consequences of her impulsive buying decisions and encouraged me to help her set up a budget instead

I finally had the courage to start talking about how I developed dissociation as a coping mechanism as a child and carried that through my life, I talked about being trained to initiate and accommodate abuse and about how these coping mechanisms carried over for me as a teenager and young adult.

I opened my eyes and felt better, exhausted but relieved of a burden. The pressure to tell and the weight of the emotions had been with me for weeks. Now that I'd told what had happened, the burden lifted a bit.

dissociating put me at higher risk for attacks in my neighborhood and at school, making me more easily identified by sexual predators

The creation of these "happy" parts felt different from the splitting that began at my fingertips when I was under attack. Entering these "good" parts felt less noticeable. There was some dizziness and light-headedness, but it was mainly just a gentle shifting in my mind. I was unsure of where my body started and ended for just a few seconds.

From that mild dissociation, I quickly went into a deeper dissociative state if there was conflict around me, if someone expressed strong emotions, or if something unpredictable happened. Although these difficult situations triggered me, they brought out behavior that helped me do well when the going got tough. I loved solving problems and getting into the thick of things and also had well-developed skills in reading people and anticipating their needs.