UNITED STATES
The Garden of Roses: Stories of Abuse and Healing
Virginia Pickles Jones
As I was preparing to sleep last night, I discovered that my cat vomited on my bed.
Was I annoyed? Honestly, I don’t remember feeling even slightly annoyed.
While I cleaned up the mess I was singing and swaying to the music of Guantanamera from a new music DVD/CD set from Playing For Change.
Music helped make an unpleasant moment fun and uplifting.
Honestly, you don’t want to hear me sing. My voice is meant for showers and lonely mountain tops where only the ants can hear me. I am lousy at making music. I took piano lessons for two years as a child. I liked playing but gave up because my brother complained constantly about how lousy I was and insisted that I practice only when he was not around to hear me. When is became difficult to practice, I felt discouraged and gave up on piano lessons.
It was easier to play when the mood moved me.
Music and one’s mood have much to do with each other. While music can uplift and inspire you, sad songs can make you sadder.
Sadness accentuated by music isn’t necessarily bad. It can promote catharsis.
I experienced catharsis listening to sad love songs. I always struggled with the ends of relationships, going into depressive funks that lasted two years or more. It was only later, when I started to read about the symptoms of child sex abuse, I found that difficulty with the ends of relationships is a common problem for survivors. Often a child sex abuse victim is groomed by their abuser, who then abandons them once they age out of the age of child their abuser is attracted to and then end up being dumped by the formerly attentive pedophile. That wasn’t my problem. I think I felt abandoned by my parents who were struggling so much with their own problems that they didn’t notice the child sex abuse I endured and disregarded it when I finally talked about it.
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