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Drowning

Filed under: Healing — 3 Comments
April 21, 2012

Lately I feel like I am drowning in pain.  All I can think is, “I don’t know how to do this…”  It’s crippling, really…I feel frozen in this spot and I am afraid to reach for help.  No one can help me through this.  The pain of my past has finally caught up with me and is taking hold of my life… it’s ruining my marriage…it’s permeating my relationships….it’s taking over!  I see every relationship or potential relationship through the filter of my parent’s abuse.  I can’t go on living like this.  It is so terrifying and isolating and maddening.  I want to be free of it all.  I wish I could wash this off… I wish I could dust my ands off and be done with it.  I wish I could change my past and give myself a blank slate – a fresh start… I wish there was a pill for bad memories… I wish…I wish…

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Therapy Letter #3 – To my Husband

Filed under: Healing — 3 Comments
April 19, 2012

Dear M____,
This is the most difficult letter I will ever write to you. I know I have apologized a thousand times to you over the years and I know I have hurt you a million more. I know that you have no reason to hope for me to change, but I promise you I am trying. I realized this morning that I have become an abuser. The cycle must stop with me. You have pointed out to me that I have been abusing myself – but I realized this morning I have been abusing you as well.
All my life I learned that love meant judgement, rejection and pain. Though I had glimmers of real love in my grandmother, sadly, she wasn’t the stronger influence in my life. My toxic parents were…their lessons of love driven home much harder and deeper than hers. This is not an excuse, just an explanation. My life has been filled with overwhelming pain since birth and pain has been my constant companion. I don’t want this anymore.
All of those unhealthy abusive behaviors followed me from my parent’s home into ours. I have neglected you and withdrew into myself and withheld love from you. It does not matter that this was not a conscious decision or done with intent. The result is the same. Pain. Doubt. A crumbling marriage.
I realize this morning that the times I am feeling the most fear and panic and doubt are the times I need to be running to you – not away from you. Because of my fear of love and feelings of worthlessness I have continued my parent’s toxic abuse cycle with you in our marriage. I have been come the thing I hate. No wonder you don’t feel safe with me.
I don’t know why God brought us together but I fear that I don’t have much to offer you. I know I have a long road to recovery ahead of me and I know I won’t get it right all the time – but I promise to get it right more often than I get it wrong.
I want to tell you that I am profoundly sorry fo all the pain I caused you through the course of our relationship. I want to tell you that I truly understand if you don’t want anything to do with me – after all – I am more like our fathers than you mother or my grandmother. I am self-centered and neglectful nd don’t deserve another chance to hurt you. You have this beautiful, loving heart and I have done my best to destroy it. You don’t deserve this.
this is what I can promise you… I love you with all my heart and I am fully committed to you – to us- and I will do everything in my power to break this cycle. I will make better choices – when all of my instincts tell me to withdraw – to hide…I will make a conscious decision to seek your heart that much harder. When I feel like pulling away I will cling to us and to God. I will pray against my strongholds daily and I will seek God in our marriage. I will see you and love you and not hide myself from you. I will fight harder against the lies and patterns I was raised around and I will talk openly about my hopes, beliefs, fears and doubts instead of retreating into my head and locking down my heart.
I take full responsibility for the current problems in our marriage and I beg your forgiveness.
I love you M___. I pray that I haven’t ruined this.
Love,
No Longer Damaged Goods

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Me

Filed under: Healing — 1 Comment
April 17, 2012

I don’t know how to be in this much pain.

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Crumbling Life

Filed under: Healing — 5 Comments
March 17, 2012

There is so much I don’t understand about this life.  It feels like it is crumbling around me.. every time I feel safe – like I might possibly have a chance at being ok, like I might actually be beginning to grasp things and see some glimmer of day-light… it hits.  Life socks me right in the gut and tells me again how worthless I am. How am I supposed to stop believing that I am worthless when the evidence is all around me.  I hurt the people I love.  I am desperate for forgiveness – for absolution.  I pray and I pray… I am doing the work – reading the books… I am trying to get in touch with my heart and find some true peace but I don’t know if I will make it.  I am terrified.  There is one person on this earth who truly knows me and loves me and he can barely stand to be with me because I am so hurtful to him… I am screwing this up!  I am failing all over again and I don’t know what to do.  I can barely function.  I wish I could just die sometimes so I could stop hurting people…stop hurting me.  I wish I had never been born.  I wish I didn’t exist.  I keep praying for God to remake me… maybe I could be better -I don’t know.  I just know that there’s something profoundly wrong with me and I am afraid I’ll  never be right again.

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Therapy Letter #2 – To my parents

Filed under: Healing — 3 Comments
March 16, 2012

Dear Mom & Dad,

     I am so disappointed in you.  I will never understand the way you treated me.  Why didn’t I matter to you?  Why, when you found out I was molested, was your first thought about how you could protect your reputations and not about how you should/could have protected me?  How can you play nice with and spend time with family that treated their daughters like human sacrifices?  Why was it so hard for you to love me?  Mark loves me and he says I am easy to love – so why is it so hard for you?  Why couldn’t you see me?  Was I invisible?  Was I too much?  You always made me feel like I was too much – like loving me would just overload you somehow.  Why wasn’t I ever good enough for you?  Why did you turn on me?  How was it my fault that Eddie raped me and his daughters?  It wasn’t my fault, it was never my fault!  How dare you blame me!  It is so unfair.  you should never have had me – you didn’t want a daughter – you wanted another notch in your belt… another blessing to claim… some other piece of evidence to prove you were a man & woman of God.  You wanted a trophy not a child.  You treated me like a display and when I wasn’t ‘pretty’ when I didn’t display just right you didn’t want me anymore.  You would rather think I was possessed by the devil than to think I didn’t believe like you anymore.  You would rather count me among the lost souls than to consider you may be wrong in you beliefs and there may be more to life and to God than wrath and anger.  It isn’t my fault you  don’t know me (or God.)  It’s yours.  you had plenty of chances to know me and you didn’t bother.  I am worth it.  I don’t deserve your criticism our your disdain.  you don’t know me because you don’t think I am worth it…well, you’re missing out.  I am worth it…I am a good woman.  I am smart, beautiful and loving.  I love God with all my heart and I serve Him.  I love my husband and I am a wife to be proud of.   Being raped by Eddie was not my fault – it was yours and you are not worthy to be parents. 

It was not my fault.  It was not my fault. 

It was not my fault.  It was not my fault.

It will never be my fault.

Love,

No Longer Damaged Goods

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Therapy Letter #1 – to Eddie

Filed under: Healing — 3 Comments
March 8, 2012

Dear Eddie:

How dare you!  I don’t know what’s wrong with you!  Who would do that to a child?  What kind of sick pervert  would touch a child like that?!?  You are a monster and you don’t deserve to live.  I wish you had never been born.  You are disgusting!  It is never ok to force sex on a child.  Children are not sexually attractive.  You diseased, filth-ridden, deplorable man!  You should suffer for what you did to me, to all of us.  You should be tortured slowly over years for the pain you inflicted on us.  You are not a follower of Christ!  You should never pretend to be…. all those years of preaching while raping little girls… you are disgusting, filthy and an abomination to humanity.  You should not call yourslef a man – that is an insult to masculinity.  True men protect those they love – they do not torture them.  True men do not use their strength to coerce – they use it to liberate.   You do not even deserve to be called human – none of what you did to us was humane.  I hope you rot in prison – know that you belong there!

Sincerely,

No Longer Damaged Goods

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Getting Back to Me

Filed under: Healing — 1 Comment
February 19, 2012

This is my plan:

I will dream again.  I will stop this pathetic “safe” settling and fight for my future again.  I will not be afraid of my own success.  I will not hide in the shadows any longer.  I will step into the light and bathe my face in the warmth of a tomorrow with promise.  I will be passionate again.  I will be alive.  I will be that girl who drove across the country alone at the drop of the hat and explored the desert.  I will be the woman who worked two jobs to pay her way through college.   I will be there for my family.   I will be a good mother.  I will love and support my husband and children and woe to anyone who dares to hurt them.  I will protect my loved ones and fight for them.  I will leave this shell behind. 

 I will get back to me.   

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Setback in D Major

Filed under: Healing — Leave a comment
February 18, 2012

The Dream:

I am spending time with my uncle, Eddie, and his 3 daughters.  We’re at my parent’s house listening to some Southern Gospel music and debating on the merits of the old Southern Gospel music vs modern Christian Rock..  We’re all laughing, teasing and so happy.   We’re flipping through CD’s and my MP3 player playlist… It’s a good day and I feel so safe and loved. 

So what makes this a nightmare?

My uncle is a rapist and a child molester and in my dream I don’t know this… in my dream I haven’t remembered what he has done to me and I don’t yet know what he is doing to his beautiful daughters.

The part of me that is always me (no matter what I am dreaming) is terrified and screaming at the dream me to get out of there !  I hate that I can feel so safe and terrified, so innocent and soiled all at the same time.  Most of all I hate how much this dream has set me back.   I hate how vulnerable I suddenly feel.  I hate how I can barely accept touch.  I hate how I want to hide away and not face all of this.  I hate the temptation to morph back into that robot of a woman and pretend that everything is fine even though I can barely breathe.

So what’s the plan?  I am going to breathe in and out.  I am going to face my fears.  I am going to feel this and not be a coward or a zombie.  I am going to admit that I have been hurt – terribly – and it is ok to be afraid for a while.  I am going to allow my husband to comfort me and allow myself some room to be vulnerable.  But most importantly, I am going to go through this.  No short-cuts or detours.  Because that is the only way I am ever really going to find peace. 

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The Windy Day

Filed under: Healing — 3 Comments
February 15, 2012

I went kayaking with some friends on Saturday.  It was blustery and cold and perfect.  We went out to Reed Bingham State Park.  It was gorgeous!  We paddled up river for about 2 hours then turned around and came back.  I love the feeling of being out on the water –  maneuvering between cypress knees and through shallow bogs and narrow passages.  I love the feeling that something unknown and wonderful could await just around the next bend.  I love the beautiful hush of the river passing through the deep woods.  There’s something profoundly healing about being out in nature…something that, as author John Eldridge wrote, let’s you know there is room for your soul.  Every time I get out on a garden path or hike a trail or kayak a river I can fill my chest expand…can feel as though I have room to breathe – to belong.  I’ve decide to do this more often… I am not going to wait until I am so stressed out i can barely function to do something healing and nice for myself.   I am going to have a standing appointment with myself to go out and have a good time…t o surround myself with something beautiful and give myself permission to be…

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Hope

Filed under: Healing — 2 Comments
January 30, 2012

I am going to be ok… I have been working so hard and making so much progress.  I am excited about my future for the first time in as long as I can remember.   I feel so full of hope and promise.  I feel like I’m getting the hang of things.  I know what I want and I know what I need to do with my life.  It’s a nice feeling – I know I don’t have everything together – but I know I will be happy one day.   Strange, this feeling of hope.  I think I’ll just enjoy it for once.

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