I am struggling today. I feel lost in my own mind and I fear I may go mad if I do not connect with someone. I need desperately to get outside of my own head. It feels dangerous and crowded in here. I do anything, everything to distract myself, to be ok – but none of it is working today. I had this idea in my mind that I would go out to eat after work and sit and sip a nice coffee while I read and was totally at peace with myself and my surroundings… I would get lost in the moment and allow myself to relax in a public setting. I would dine alone with relish at the space – all the room for my own thoughts and ideas and creative urges… I brought along my journal and was READY. I was prepared for great inspiration and deep connecting to my heart. What I actually did was drive between 3 different restaurants in a fit of indecision for about half an hour before deciding to eat at a place I’ve never heard of just because it was getting late and I was verging on panic. So I parked and went inside. It was quiet, only a hand-full of other diners – that is, until I got there. Apparently the dinner rush came right behind me and the place transformed from a quiet haven to a bustling noisy nerve-jangling room full of voices and smells of food and bodies. Now, I know the place was not as full as my mind was making it out to be – but in my anxiety-filled state of mind it felt like a crowd pressing upon me… so no peace. I ate fast and got out of there. Next I figured I could at least go to the nearest coffee shop and pull up a chair and be politely ignored while I read or journal. I arrived at Starbucks (not exactly what I had in mind but I’m still learning my way around this town) and ordered with confidence and sat at a tall table in the tiny coffee shop. I read a chapter of my book (although, in retrospect, I cannot tell you what I read) and sipped my mocha. I made myself read slowly and to sip my drink with apparent relish… but I was not fooling myself. My heart raced, my palms were sweaty and I was hyper aware of every person in the room and through the corner of my eye kept tabs on the people around me. Will I ever get beyond this need to look over my shoulder? Will I ever not feel his eyes on me? Will I ever stop listening for his footsteps coming up behind me? Will I ever forget the feel of his rough hands, stubbled chin…the smell of his after-shave? Will I ever purge myself of this man? Will I ever be able to stay in the moment without escaping into the nearest distraction? Will I ever feel at home in my own skin again? Will I ever stop feeling like a disappointment, a failure? Will his voice ever leave my ears? What ifs plague me. What if he haunts me my entire life. What if I never get better? What if … what if …
Tag Archive: cutting
Shaking inside I wake – afraid
and I stare into the darkness
wondering if you lie awake at night
and think about me….
Do you ever wonder if
you could have done better? Or
do you rest easy in your shroud of self-
righteousness and assume you are god?
Here is my heart…. take it
eat it…throw it away… break
it in two… love it… hate it…
just stop refusing to SEE it.
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.
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.
I feel like I am in the fight of my life. I am up against so much. Not only am I still coming to terms with my past abuse, I am trying to break my present cycle of self-abuse. I was feeling all proud of myself thinking I had come so far… and to be fair I have made a lot of progress – but I have a daunting amount of work ahead of me. I am nearly crippled by this. I don’t know how to be real. I am really good at faking it. I look great on paper – happily married, good career, room for growth and promotion in my field, 2 college degrees, a savings account, pets, friends… We own our home and cook meals way more than we eat out… we hike when we can on weekends and try to play tennis once a month… The reality is we don’t have it together. I don’t have it together. I don’t even know where “it” is to get it together. I have no idea where to start. I’m reading books, doing my devotions, listening to Christian music, going to therapy and yet “it” eludes me.
I don’t want to go through the motions, I want to live. I am fighting to live – to breathe – to have a thought or opinion I don’t feel I have to apologize for. I am sick to death of being sorry all the time! What am I sorry for, existing? breathing? being? I have no idea… I just feel perpetually apologetic and frankly pathetic! This is not me… every fiber of my being screams and rails against this shell of a person I have become. I have to defeat her. She may have served a purpose at one time but those days are long gone and now instead of helping me she is slowly undermining me – turning me into a mindless, whimpering drone. I am not this woman. I am passionate and alive. I am angry and strong and am not going to put up with this any more! I am fierce and loving and loyal and I get what I want because I fight for it. I am not this mousey, lay down and die disguise I have been wearing… I am not this afraid to look you in the eyes broken down woman who I have been pretending to be lately.
I am putting on my armor – I am sharpening my weapons – I am stoking this furnace and I will burn off this shell in a wash of heat and light and hope. I will find myself again and I will not be burdened by all of this fear any longer. I deserve better. I am worth fighting for and if any one is going to fight for me I had better start the battle. I am loved, I am fiercely guarded, I am cherished, I am Captivating. I will defeat these shackles and melt away these chains and I will rise up. I am an amazing woman. I am strong. You haven’t seen anything yet.
I felt the temptation to cut again yesterday stronger than I have in years. It’s so frustrating… I thought I was past this… Some days the pain is just too much and I want some relief. The thought of a sharp blade was so comforting and alluring…like a siren’s song. I don’t want to go down this path again. I decide my future, and my future is not drowned in numbness-walking through life like a zombie. I want to feel and be alive and real. I want a life of honestly dealing with my emotions not running from them to booze or blade or drugs or sex or danger. I want to breathe in every second of this precious life – even the parts that are painful or frustrating. I want to be alive. Please, God, help me…
Calmly I offer you
pieces of my heart,
tenderly chosen-
which you accept
with a smile
then toss away,
crumpled.
Just another piece
of unwanted garbage-
for which you spare
no thought.
I used to be a self-mutilator. I don’t know why that is so hard for me to admit to when I have no problem talking openly about my abuse… it seems silly to me that I can tell someone that I was abused and raped but ignore the effects it had on me. I had over 60 scars on my body from cutting at one time… many of which are completely healed over. I cut for many reasons… mostly to escape the pain that tormented me daily… sometimes to escape the utter numbness that was the only alternative I had to the pain.
Now I seek a healthier alternative… I allow myself to feel the pain and to process the anger. I allow myself to be broken and in that find surcease. I look at my scars now and do not feel shamed by them, rather, I feel honored. Honored that I survived this and I can survive still.
captivatingbitter 
