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The Quiet One


She sat quietly in class

Never hearing a word-

Her mind screaming,

Racing, ravaging her thoughts…

She sat calmly, pen in hand;

Honor student….horror filled

And anguished.

Automatically, she made conversation…

She passed tests

She chatted with friends

And longed to die

To escape this pain…

She sat quietly in church

Longing for salvation

Imprisoned by religion

Preached at by her tormentors

Looking for horns

Disguised as halos.

She sat quietly at home

And smiled at the monsters

While cutting the pain 

Of her soul out of her skin…

Watching the blood ooze and

Drip…with dry eyes

And emotionless face

Hiding the raging terror

In her heart.

She sat quietly in the therapist’s chair

Giving reassurances to the one

Who was supposed to help – 

Praying they see 

Behind her stillness

To the utter turmoil within

Not trusting anyone or anything…

Somehow comforting them

For her pain

And living with the hopelessness

That almost felt like a friend.

She stood quietly in the bathroom…

Staring at her calm face

Unwilling to meet her own gaze,

Unable to keep avoiding the horror…

The pain ravaging her from inside

And without warning-

Almost in slow motion

The avalanche began…

All the silence broke

The tears came in a torrent,

The rage, the pain…

The still, quiet girl is gone

Replaced with a woman

With a face full of anguish

Unable to sit quietly any longer – 

Not willing to still her face

For the comfort of strangers

Haunted and crumbling

Shattered

Shuttering violently with each 

Invasive

Intrusive

Memory.

Stumbling and falling

All along the path

To be whole.


I feel like I have been in a fog for the last 5 years. I have made so many mistakes on my journey to be whole. I have to live with that. I hate that I abandoned myself, though. I used to believe that I had something to offer…some step on my healing journey that might help someone else. Then… I abandoned all of my former belief in this journey and went dark… I am sorry for that. My mistakes in healing are just as important as my triumphs… maybe more so because they show the honest truth and may make those of you on this broken journey with me feel less alone…less in the dark. I am digging deep, finding my roots, feeling the night without being invaded by the dark… come along, if you wish. I would love to have you on this journey with me… maybe we can help each other heal.

The Loss of a Mother


My mother passed away recently as I posted a while back… I am still trying to figure out how I feel about it all, but what I have concluded is this…I lost all hope of having a mother years ago… In many ways I lost my mother long before she died. I lost what it was to have a mother. I lost any concept of being loved by a mother or having a mother to love and celebrate and look up to. Now, here I am at 44 trying to reconcile my aching heart to the loss of a woman who hated me and did so much to crush my heart and who was far more concerned with being a martyr than a mother. I don’t know how to navigate these waters. I loved my mother and I was also so crushed by her and so utterly hurt. Sometimes my heart just aches within my chest and part of me recognizes that ache as the ache for family…for her. I dreamed of having a mother I could say anything to…who I could talk to about anything at any time. Someone I could tell the truth to and who would always tell me the truth in turn. Someone who would help me to know what a Godly woman looked like, what a good wife was, how to be a woman. I wanted someone to demonstrate femininity and not to revile it. Instead I was raised in loveless house of lies and my heart just hurts… I am not sure now how to mourn her, how to mourn myself…

The Death of a Tyrant


Who mourns the death of a tyrant? Do you mourn the loss of the person who caused you unimaginable pain? I recently found out that my mother died. Apparently she died back in May. I didn’t know how to feel… mostly because I kept waiting to feel all the things you are supposed to feel when your mother dies… I kept waiting for tears, for mourning, for pain, for confusion… What I mostly felt was … relief. The world felt a little safer to me… Don’t get me wrong, I felt pain… but it was largely the pain of my life…of every time I was abused, neglected, insulted, criticized, misunderstood, raped, hit… The pain of everything she could have been but wasn’t.

It feels scandalous to say out loud that I was relieved when I found out my mother died…but that is the ugly truth of it. I wonder if everyone that is abused feels the same… is this a truth that we all just don’t say out loud? We face polite society and cower in the face of judgement from others. I did. Honestly, I have been judged my entire life. I have lived in pain all my life and been judged for saying I hurt… been judged harshly for saying what you did hurt me… I have been flat out told that I had no reason to hurt. When I confronted my parents with the truth of my pain I was ignored, told that there was nothing wrong with me… when I asked for therapy I was told I don’t need it… I was told over and over that in so many ways that I was crazy…. So now…when I know she is gone – I feel relieved…. I feel like there is one less person trying to gaslight me. One less narcissist to go around pretending like we had this perfect little family.

I will not remain silent… I have been quiet for years – I backed into the shadows… This has brought me back into the light… this had made me feel a little safer in the world, a little more at home. The world with one less monster in it feels like a better world to live in… a safer place for my heart, my memories, my thoughts, my anger, fear, pain, triumph, hope…. safer for me.

I felt for the last several years like I just wanted to hide from everyone, from my past, from the world at large… learning about my mother’s death makes me feel invited back out into the sun…. I belong here. I am not going anywhere and just because the truth makes people uncomfortable doesn’t mean that I will ever stop speaking it and putting it out there. I realized that me shutting up doesn’t protect me – it just makes the monsters more comfortable and that is not the way I want to live anymore.

So…. I am accepting the invitation. I am going to walk in the sun and tell the truth and put my heart back out there… hiding it was not protecting my heart – it was only protecting their reputation… So here I am. In pain, broken, hurt, angry – but full of hope and enjoying the sunlight and not afraid of my own heart anymore.

Update


I need to set the record straight. I found out my stupid, crazy family has been telling people that they don’t really have anything to do with me because of “decisions I have made.” So I wanted to clarify those decisions. I decided several years ago to cut them out of my life. MY choice ~ not theirs. I CHOOSE to keep them out of my life and pursue healing. I do not associate with them any more. The last contact I had with them was about a year or so ago when I drove to their house to confront them about the abuse. I then went to the police and filed charges against them for abuse. I have been told by someone that they are telling people that I was stoned or high or something crazy… but I was just angry and emotional. I think they don’t know what to do with my emotions. I think my emotions freak them out and they just want to run away from them and they would rather have me silent and afraid. They don’t know what to do when I am neither silent nor afraid.

There are too many of us out there to stay silent. Our stories matter! #silentnomore

Searching for Words


I have walked through most of my life feeling crazy…not quite trusting my own mind.  I doubted every emotion and tried to gain mastery over it.  All I achieved was a terrible numbness that leached all the color out of my world and left me with the terrible gray nothing… A Nothing which threatened to consume me.  My passion had fled… my desire, my dreams, my daring… my hope… all fled and a terrible emptiness a terrible apathy remained.

Neglect… the rot of the soul.

How, then, does one become healthy again?  For me ~ by feeling…raging, crying, sleeping too much, grieving.  One more step, one more day, then another and another and another… all running into each other… Days of pain and misery and fear and pleasure and dreams… Pain is the pathway that will lead hope back into my heart.

Feelings


I go through most days expressing little or no emotion.  I can pass as human.  I can blend in with the best of them… but I feel like an imposter.  An empty shell.  I just smile at the right times and say the right things so no one notices how broken I am.

I can’t do it any more.  I am so profoundly broken.  Every breath hurts… every heartbeat… they sear my chest and the white-hot pain is such I fear it will kill me.  I walk around with so much bitterness, so much anger… I hide in plain sight.

I am tired.  I am tired of wanting to die.  I am tired of the pain… and I am tired of pretending to be ok.  I am so lonely and so heartbroken.  This is me.


I have been away for far too long…. I have been locked in the dark….in the quet, lonely place where memories reign supreme and where my demons haunt me…where they dog my every step/

Here is what I remember:

I am still in diapers and I am sitting on my mom’s lap. I am leaning against her chest and facing out with her arms around me and I can feel her hands…her soft skin… her thumb rubbing the bottom of my stomach…stroking into my diaper… gentle strokes, caresses….like a lover… all soft and gentle… stroking down and down while rocking and  at the same time making me feel so safe and so warm…. ever stroking downward… caressing me and stroking me… but never holding me down.  Never forcing me.  Always within plain view… always like the ever loving mother…. always letting me up if I squirmed or waned to get away… stroking thumb… stroking fingers… touching me with those soft hands and always being careful not for force me… not to hold me against my will… making me a willing participant in my own molestation… I can’t honestly say I fought you.  I just accepted what you were doing as normal….. or as love

Memory;  I don’t know how old I am … maybe 9… maybe 7… I hear your voice call me into your bedroom…. Mom is at work and Aaron is away… Or maybe at Scouts?  l….. I come to where you call me and I find you there….. shirt unbuttoned… pants unzipped… penis out and erect… and before I have words for this… before I understand what is going on…I am close enough for you to grab me… You grab me by the wrist and force my little girl hands around your penis… You are sticky ad hot and smell like sweat… and I still to this day remember how you felt!! I remember having your rough hands over mine and your penis in between my small little girl hands and you forcing me up and down and feeling the hot sticky explosion of your climax and the salty, sweaty, dirty smell of you….

 

Memory: later that same year… or maybe a year later… I remember your hands roughly grabbing my hair and pulling me to my knees before you… I remember the pain of you pulling my hair and how it felt to have my head so twisted and my hair pulled so violently!  I remember choking on your erection and being forced up and down as I gagged on you…I remember feeling my mouth stretch painfully and feeling as though I would smother or suffocate on you….

 

Memory:  It is my birthday…. I  have rag curls in my hair that i had to sleep in all night…. I am barefoot and wearing a blue dress with a little ruffle at the bottom… It is the kind of dress that flairs when I twirl and I feel so pretty in it…. Mom went out to get the cake or something and for some reason it is just you and I at home and I don’t know if it is my feeling so pretty that set you off or if there is something about my joy that infuriates you… but I remember your hands.. you grabbed me from behind and yelled at me about the mess in my room… you shoved me so hard face down on the bed that it took my breath away and you pulled my panites down and my dress up… you raped me in  be but while I could not even scram … let alone breathe … you “punished” me and made me feel so dirty and so disgusting and like it was all my fault.  So many memories and so much torment…

 

Being slapped in the face, being ridiculed, being tormented…being silenced….

Well::  I am silent no more….

I have pressed charges and I will not live in fear any longer!  I will fight… and I will survive… I will not be the one cowering in the dark any longer.  This far And No More

Been a while…


Some days I feel like I don’t exist anymore… and in some ways I suppose I don’t.  I am not the girl I was  years ago… I am not the woman I was a few months ago.  I am changing all the time.  For the longest time I fought that tooth and nail…I thought that was a bad thing.  I thought that changing meant I was losing a piece of myself ~or worse ~ all of myself.  I thought I would not be me anymore.  Turns out – I wasn’t.  But that is ok.  I began this blog to journal my healing journey.  I have been runnin’ a lot lately.  I have been hidin’.  I have been sneakin’ around hidin’ behind syntax and proper grammar.  I have been flowerin’ up my language and tryin’ to be proper.  Truth is, I am so angry.  I am so dang mad I could scream…and have!  I have screamed, cried, prayed… I have felt lost and confused and abandoned.  I have felt needy and weak.   It feels like the deeper I dig the more junk I find and I feel like I will never be ‘done’.  Like I will always find more junk to dig out and toss away.  My current list – well, it’s loooong – but I am working on it.

I found someone in my family decided to throw away a 20 year marriage, he has just thrown it away and utterly failed his wife and son.  He has been cruel and abusive and I am so disappointed in him.  He hurls insults and he is so hateful.  I doubt I would even recognize him anymore.  Not that we are close.  Those days are long over.

I am still working on my trauma therapy, having been beaten, raped, molested, abused…I just want to live, you know?  To really live.  I find myself tiptoeing around – literally.  I find myself trying to make myself small and not to be a bother.  I find myself waiting on the pain to rain down on me.  It is killing me.  It is killing my marriage.  My husband married me, but got this docile, hiding, timid woman instead.  I don’t even know who I am some days.

I am … well, not thriving… but hoping to thrive.  I am tired of living on bread and water when there is steak and wine.  I am ready to have my heart feast instead of hide.  I want to swim in the ocean of emotion … swim, and possibly, drown.  But I am ok with that.  I don’t want control anymore.  I want to be lost.DSC_0167

Codependence


Hi, my name is Becka and I am codependent.  I got a chip at my first CoDA meeting and I am taking things one day at a time.  I am step by step journeying back into my life ~ breaking free of this disease and learning to be healthy and whole.   I know I have a long uphill battle ahead.  I know this won’t be easy.  This codependency has seeped its way into nearly every aspect of my life and the depths of my mental illness has permeated me to my very core.  I go days, sometimes, feeling nothing at all.

Numb…such a hateful four-letter word.  I used to think it equated to safety but now I see it for what it is.  The destroyer of all my humanity.  My empathy, compassion, warmth, silliness, passion, anger… all faded to apathy and numbness until my world was all grey and I forgot what color looked like… what color felt like.  I forgot what love felt like, what warmth felt like… I even forgot the fierce red heat of anger, I forgot the beautiful blues of sadness and all the vibrant hues of desire.

I found the stair-case…now I am climbing out… Becka-Dragon Girl… hear me roar…