Tag Archive: blessings


Healing: Part 1 – How do I feel?

Filed under: The Courage to Heal — 4 Comments
September 10, 2012

Excerpt from The Courage to Heal pg xxiv ~” Time will dull the pain, but deep healing doesn’t happen uness you consciously choose it”~

John Eldridge says in his book Wild at Heart that “A wound unfelt is a wound unhealed.”  So I have to ask myself – how do I feel?  How has living with this abuse made me feel…?  Following along in the first chapter of Courage I have journaled the following:

How abuse affected my self esteem: 

I feel…..

  • Bad, dirty, ashamed
  • Like there’s something wrong with me
  • Like if people really knew me they would leave me
  • Like I hate myself
  • Immobilized by fear/can’t get motivated
  • Unable to protect myself
  • Self destructive

I don’t know how to….

  • Identify my own needs
  • Feel good
  • Nurture myself
  • Trust myself
  • Recognize my own interests/talents/goals (my heart)

I feel like I can’t accomplish what I set out to do

I feel like I can’t move on with my life.

I feel compelled to be perfect

I feel like I am missing large parts of my childhood…

How this abuse has affected my body:

I have a hard time:

  • Appreciating and accepting my body
  • Feeling at home in my own skin
  • Being fully present in my body
  • experiencing a full rang of feelings in my body.
  • experiencing my body as a unified whole.

I have:

  • Hurt myself ~abused my body
  • Used alcohol and drugs
  • Had an eating disorder
  • Had a physical illness connected to my abuse
  • Felt as though I sometimes leave my body.

Sometimes I:

  • Am not always aware of the messages my body gives me (hunger, fear, tiredness…)
  • Mistrust my body
  • Feel numb or disconnected from physical sensations
  • Startle easily and have a hard time calming down
  • Am unable to relax and feel physically safe.

Relating to intimacy – Sometimes I:

  • Find it difficult to: trust people, make close friends, create/maintain healthy relationships, give or receive nurturing, be affectionate, say no/set appropriate boundaries.
  • I feel I don’t deserve love
  • I am afraid of people
  • I feel alienated/isolated
  • I rarely feel connected to self/others
  • I don’t know how to trust
  • I feel betrayed and taken advantage of
  • I shut down, get nervous, panic when people get too close
  • I cling to people I care about
  • I expect people to leave me.

It is hard to take an honest look at my life – to survey the damage like I am taking inventory.  I don’t exactly know how to feel about all of this…mosty I look over the different aspects of my life and kind of nod to myself and think…”Well this explains a lot.”

Please bear with me dear readers.  I am by far not through this journey yet.

Peace be with you.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

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…

Image

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

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

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Siren

Filed under: Healing, Poetry — Leave a comment
October 15, 2011

There’s something out there that is calling to me. 

I hear the voice clearly – haunting – chilling-alluring.

I long to follow… but I am so afraid.

It whispers, teases, shouts – and still I stand-

frozen and impotent.

When I break free of this I will run blindly

into that tantalizing music of freedom

and find my laughter waiting for me there.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Wild Goodness

Filed under: Healing — Leave a comment
August 9, 2011

My husband has coined the phrase wild goodness to describe things that are good in a major way… sometimes even in a dangerous way… like a walk in a storm, sex on the beach in the middle of the day, a large sum of unexpected money… something that touches you on a primal level and speaks to the goodness and wildness that is God’s love for us.   We try so hard to fit God into a box, to make him fit within parameters that are comfortable to us and when He doesn’t fit we get discouraged, frustrated and afraid.   I know I do.  I want God to be predictable and stable and quiet and unobtrusive; but I am glad He is not those things.  Deep down, I am glad He is wild and dangerous and good in ways that are beyond my comprehension.  I am glad He is a God of Passion, a God of fierceness, a God of untold beauty and strength… a God of storms and sex and roller-coasters… a God of music and art… of lovers and warriors and dancers… a God of grace and peace…  I want to live a life of wild goodness… of abandon.  God help me to see You as You are.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Family

Filed under: Memories — 2 Comments
March 12, 2011

     Talking to my mom today sent me into a tail-spin. I hate that I am so afraid of being “found out” like I am doing something wrong and have something to hide…  I hate that just speaking to my family on the phone has the power to make me doubt my past and begin to see it through their eyes.  I came from a family of “brush it under the rug”.  They are great at pretending that everything is ok and we’re not really broken in the extreme.  Most of my life my dad yelled and screamed and belittled all of us and my mom just took it and let us take it. 

      I remember one night when I was a little girl, my parents had put me to bed.  I got up to get a teddy bear off my shelf to sleep with and had curled up in bed and was just drifting off to sleep when my dad burst into my room, angry.  He asked me if I had gotten out of bed and I told him I had gotten up to get a bear to sleep with.  He asked me if I had left the room and I hadn’t.  He then accused me of sneaking out of my room to watch through the cracked door as my brother changed clothes.  He was crazy angry and accused me of lieing when I denied this.  He beat me with a belt so badly I had whelps from the backs of my knees to the small of my back.  He was in a blind rage.  My mother came in afterword to ask me if I had done this and I told her the same thing I told my father.  She told me it would make things better if I apologized to my father and just said that I had done this thing he accused me of.  So I did and my dad pulled me into his lap and hugged me and told me he loved me.  I don’t even know why, to this day, he would think I would be watching my brother dress or undress or why it would have been a big deal as we were both very young… I was about 6  and my brother was about 9-10.

    When I was a teenager I confronted my parents about this and they both denied the whole thing and told me I must have imagined it.  My whole life they have managed to make me feel crazy…  Now I just want to live in truth and not brush anything else under the rug.   I am through pretending.   I long to walk in the sunshine and feel the warmth on my skin.  I long to live in truth.  I may not be perky and happy all the time, but I am real and alive, and that is so much better to me.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

One Single Tear (part one)

Filed under: Poetry — 2 Comments
March 8, 2011

   I will spare only one tear for you.  I dare not open the floodgates of my emotion lest the onslaught destroy me in a vortex of fear and self-loathing.  You are naught but a ghost.  I killed you that day.  I watched you die.  In desperation, I drove the knife home and I watched you writhe in agony with a bitter smile on my face.  I strove to destroy you, dear child…but not without reason.  I destroyed you to save you, that perhaps some small remnant of the girl you were could survive, pristine.

    I was a fool to attempt this.  I will never escape you.  You are soiled and ugly.  You are a protector of wrong, defender of evil.  You cause hurt to come upon others.  You have no pity. Stupid child. Pitiful creature.  To know you is to loathe you.  To despise your very existence.  Whore that you are, finding joy in your torture, enlisting the pity of others to aid in your healing.  You will never be free.  You live only to suffer, die only to rot.

    I did not bury you that day.  I torment myself with the knowledge of my deed.  My failure to eradicate you will haunt me forever.  You are the ghost that haunts my dreams.  You are the demon who terrorizes my waking hours.  You are my hell, my prison I have created and I cannot break free.  I hate you, unclean thing that you are.  I am locked in here with you-my tormentor. 

    I shed only one tear for you.  You will spend my whole life dyeing.  I spare only one tear for you because you will rape my soul forever.  You will rape my soul forever.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Gaping Hole

Filed under: Healing — 2 Comments
March 6, 2011

I was taking a shower today and staring at the shower head thinking about the time we had to change it. Then I suddenly remembered that there was a huge gaping hole on the other side of the wall.  Changing this shower head was supposed to be simple… just unscrew the old one then screw the new one in place.  Like most things in life it got complicated quickly.  After trial and error we had to cut a large access hole into wall in the adjoining room to repair the problem.   These repairs were taking place at about 9pm on a Sunday which meant we didn’t have much time to get the job properly done before we had to give up on it for the night and just rig it up and go to bed.  Well now a month has passed and I had managed to completely forget that this huge hole existed.  As long as the shower functioned properly and I didn’t have to look at the hole it was not a part of my reality.  This became a metaphor for my life…  I find that as long as I am functioning on a day to day level –  as long as I can go to work, pay my bills, put dinner on the table, clean my kitchen, spend time with my husband – as long as I can do these things I fool myself into thinking that the gaping hole in my chest doesn’t exist.  Then something horrible happens… something wonderful… my husband looks at me and says, “You don’t have to pretend here.”  And I am suddenly aware of this wound.  I feel it and allow myself to be broken for a moment.  Just that small reminder that I am seen, that I don’t have to hide… It’s painful and wonderful at the same time.  I usually don’t allow myself to feel this pain.  I just gloss over it and pretend to be ok, to be happy.  Something amazing happens in the middle of it all, though… Through the safe release of this pain… I find that under it I really am happy… that I really do believe everything will be ok eventually and I don’t have to rush through this healing process… I can give myself permission to be.  There is so much grace in that realization.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Trying to move on…

Filed under: Healing — 4 Comments
February 28, 2011

I am so afraid… I am embarking on yet another chapter of my life and I don’t know if I can do this. I am finally coming to terms with how abusive my parents were. Even though they did not molest me, they didn’t protect me and not only did they not protect me they treated me like a freak when they found out. They blamed me, they buried the whole thing under the rug and went on pretending that everything in our family was perfect. I have been surrounded by this attitued of ‘everything is ok’ my whole life. No matter how twisted or painful things were in our home we all pretended to be a happy family. I don’t want to pretend anymore. My life was pain… intense, bitter pain… and I am not ok with that anymore. I will not bow down to this cult of secrets and lies anymore. I will approach my life with honesty, even if that means I cry every day until this mourning period has passed… at least I will be real.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Longing

Filed under: Healing — 1 Comment
February 27, 2011

There’s so much I don’t understand about the healing process. I feel so lost and confused sometimes. I just want to feel whole again… I just want to be me again, whoever that is… For the first time in a long time I long to be whole, I want it so bad I can taste it. I am tired of lingering in the shadows hoping that everything will be ok. I am tired of settling for being broken. I am tired of being resigned to living this half-life where I never expect my life to be any better than it is. I deserve to be happy. I deserve to be free. I deserve to feel strong and beautiful. I am done apologizing my way through life. I am done keeping my head down and staying out of everyone’s way. I am done being beaten down and just accepting that that is my fate. I want to live. I want to thrive. I want to twirl in the sunshine with my arms flung out and my head tilted back with the wind in my hair and a laugh on my lips. I want to dance in my livingroom unashamed. I want to play and have fun. I want to revel in every day miracles. I want to blow the seeds off dandelions and make wishes. I want to spoil myself and not feel guilty. I want to pursue health and not fear. I want to be embraced and enjoyed. I want to be safe again. I don’t want to be alone anymore. I want to allow my husband to love me. I want to give myself permission to be vulnerable and let down my guard. I want to be vibrant and passionate and ALIVE. I want freedom from this pain, this fear that holds me back… I want to more than conquer it I want to stomp it into the ground and take away its power over me. I want to shake off this weight from my shoulders and sing to the sky. I will be happy one day. I will overcome this.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment