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Been a while…

Filed under: Random — 1 Comment

October 27, 2018

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.

Tags: abuse, art therapy, courage, divorce, failed marriage, family, fear, healing, heart, incest, marriage, marriage counseling, pain, photography, poetry, psychology, rape, reflections, relationships, sexual abuse, survivor, therapy, truth, writing

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Feelings

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October 8, 2017

I find it so hard to stay in my heart – to stay in my feelings… My default setting seems to be numb. I feel so awkward most of the time. I feel so much – but it is buried so deep I appear vacant. My heart hurts. I am so tired and so broken. I carry this horrible weight that threatens to suffocate me at times. I feel at war. At war with my pain, at war with my heart, at war with the terrible pull of numbness, addiction, alcohol…. at war with my faith and my anger… at war with my passion and my passivity. I can feel in one moment like a giant, like a force to be reckoned with and in the next moment I feel like I am not even real and I give in to my despair. I fear I will drown in it. I know I am all over the place and this may not even make any sense… but there you are. Pieces of me. Broken, fearful, lost, anguished, angry, confused, passionate, apathetic… My heart is a patchwork of pain and pleasure….but honestly, mostly pain. I ache. I feel heavy with the weight of my broken heart…

Tags: abuse, anger, anxiety, art, art therapy, beauty, being afraind, being real, blessings, broken, change, child, child abuse, child molester, choices, damaged goods, death, depression, doubt, dreams, emotion, faith, family, fear, frustration, future, god, healing, honest, honesty, hope, incest, longing, love, memories, metamorphosis, pain, photography, poetry, prayer, rape, recovery, sexual abuse, survivor, therapy, truth

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Anger

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June 11, 2017

I spent most of my life running away from my anger, afraid of it. I thought if I just was careful, if I just suppressed all the seething anger threatening to overtake me I would ‘win’. I thought it would prove that I made it out… prove that despite their best efforts they did not win… I was wrong! My anger only turned inward… poisoning me. It turned into cutting, addiction, apathy, defeat, depression. I am through. I am not doing this anymore. You know what you deserve? You- pretender- the one who tortured me, who abused me, who raped me, who molested me, who slapped me, who beat me… you know what you deserve…??>> You deserve this anger – you deserve this pain – you deserve to feel crazy and out of control! You deserve to be beaten, stoned, tortured. You deserve to be exposed and laid bare for all the world to see. You deserve to be reviled. You deserve to be seen as the disgusting, weak, pervert that you are! And don’t think that you are getting away with anything help-meet… Don’t think I don’t see you in the dark cowering…hiding in his shadow! You are just the same! You are just as bad! Do you think that not helping – that just watching and being the silent partner absolves you of guilt?!? Do you think your hands are any less dirty?! I am here to tell you, you are just as vile! You are just as poisonous! You are GUILTY!! I am DONE feeling crazy because of your choices! I am done twisting myself in knots trying to make sense of your lies! I am not crazy! It was not my fault ~ It is never a child’s fault for being abused and not having anyone to stand up for them! I am done taking the blame for the damage you caused! I am not playing this game anymore! You are nothing and you don’t get a say-so any more!

Tags: abuse, anger, anguish, brother, child-molestor, death, family, father, fear, guilty, incest, monster, mother, murder, pain, rape, rapist, revenge, survivor, terror, twisted, ugly, victim

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Prison

Filed under: Healing, Uncategorized — 2 Comments

January 28, 2017

I feel like I am in prison. Trapped between two lives. The life I have always lived, the life that kept me safe growing up … the life that keeps my head down and keeps me busy with things, that keeps every emotion under tight control…. and the life I long for. This life would be free… it would be an emotional roller-coaster and it frankly frightens me. I am afraid that if I embrace this life – if I just allow myself to feel what-ever I feel in the moment that I will sometimes be cruel, that I will sometimes be snappy and inconsiderate… I am afraid that I will make mistakes while I am learning how to live outside my own head and alienate people. Playing it safe is getting me nowhere…but it is the only thing I have ever known. The only time I wore my emotions on my skin was a time when I did not really care what anyone else thought – they could just take me or leave me just as I am. I was arrogant and terrified at the same time. I don’t know how to find that peace inside. I don’t know how to be what I am supposed to be.

I am a dead girl. I died a long time ago. I died when you raped me and what-ever it was deep inside me that made me “me” is gone. I don’t know how I am still walking around most days. I suppose I do it because I am on auto-pilot and the other me is at the controls, making sure I smile in the appropriate places and say the right things and hold my body posture and facial expressions in the right way so that no one will know they are talking to a zombie.

How do you bring a dead girl back to life? How do you convince her that she is safe when she doesn’t even know what “safe” means? How do you get her to trust you when you have despised her – hated her all these years. How, now, do I draw her out and show her compassion and delight. How do I warm her cold body and tell her that even though it was not ok what happened to her that it SHE will be ok… at least she will be one day.

How do I figure out how to forgive myself? I can forgive others. I have… my abusers – I forgive them all – I release them to God. I pray for them… but myself??!? I feel utterly lost here.

The dead girl… maybe I don’t bring her back to life… maybe I bury her and the robot and find out who I am without either of them helping me through life. Maybe there is another me in here … that super-secret special me who loves fresh picked flowers, slow dances, warm embraces, laughter… she loves the way long dresses feels brushing against her legs, she loves to twirl and blow dandelions to make wishes. She loves to be held and rocked and have her hair brushed… she loves surprises and presents and the smell of fresh-baked bread. She cries at the sad parts of books and movies (even if she has read/seen them a hundred times). She loves to paint and sing and take long bubble baths. She is very tenderhearted and her feelings are easily hurt. She is fierce and protective and makes lots of mistakes.

How do I do this? How do I move on from what I had to become to what I truly am? This feels impossible and I feel so lost and alone and afraid. I pray for help…God, please help me…

Tags: abuse, alone, art, childhood, childhood sexual abuse, death, failure, faith, family, father, fear, haunted, home, life, prayer, rant, rape, reflections, relationships, sad, suicide, therapy, truth, writing

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Giving Up

Filed under: Healing — 4 Comments

September 6, 2016

I am giving up on you. Every time I think of you I feel this overwhelming rush of disappointment. I wonder (sometimes) why I ever bothered. It’s not like you felt my love anyway. I tried so hard to love you. I cooked special dinners (which you criticized) I came to visit (which you took for granted) I doted on you and tried so hard to please you… but I give up… You never wanted to know me. You never liked anything that had to do with me. I feel like every time my heart was brought out for you to see it was criticized, judged, not good enough, too emotional, too much of a bleeding heart, not loving enough, not affectionate enough… too depressed, too dark… too sad… too silly… I am tired of it all. I give up…

I am enough. I am enough for me. I am good enough, smart enough, kind enough, loving enough… I am enough. I can do this.

Tags: abuse, adult survivor of child sexual abuse, anger, anxiety, art, art therapy, beauty, being afraind, being real, betrayal, bitterness, blessings, broken, child, child molester, child-molestor, choices, cold, cult, damaged goods, danger, death, depression, despair, doubt, dreams, emotion, emotional abuse, faith, family, father, feeling, flowers, free-verse poetry, fun, future, god, grandmother, grief, guilt, healing, home, honest, honesty, hope, hopes, incest, intimacy, ledgends, lonely, longing, loss, love, marriage, memories, metamorphosis, monster, music, nature, pagan, pain, photography, poetry, prayer, preaching, rant, rape, recovery, relationships, sadness, self-mutilation, sex, sexual abuse, suicide, surviving abuse, therapy, truth

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Open Letter

Filed under: Healing — 3 Comments

August 22, 2016

***WARNING: This may be triggering***

You know who you are. I knew you thought I wouldn’t remember… or maybe you thought I was too afraid to say anything… Maybe you are so supremely arrogant that you have yourself convinced that you did not do anything wrong… I do not pretend to know your motivations… I do not pretend to know what was on your sick mind. You know what I remember? I remember being held face down bent over a bed with my face pressed into the suffocating softness and thinking that this was how I would die. I remember the pain as you ripped into me – penetrating me harshly – feeling like a knife… I remember rough hands and a harsh voice. I remember longing for death that day and many, many days afterward. I vowed to never be vulnerable again… I vowed to never let you see me hurt… do you remember calling me a touch-me-not? Did you ever wonder why touch made me recoil? Why touch made me feel sick inside? I doubt it… everything was about you, wasn’t it? It was about your needs, your feelings, your ‘right’… I am tired of feeling like this. I am tired of feeling like I am not allowed to feel. Yes, I have a lot of pain – but I am strong enough to feel it. I am strong enough to survive you – I am strong enough to survive anything. I revoke my vow. I can be vulnerable. You will never touch me again, but I will love being touched again. I will not live locked in my solitude. I will feel again and I will make a new life. I will survive you yet…

Tags: abuse, adult survivor of child sexual abuse, anger, anxiety, art, art therapy, beauty, being afraind, being real, bitterness, blessings, broken, change, child, child abuse, child molester, choices, cutting, damaged goods, danger, death, depression, despair, doubt, dreams, emotion, emotional abuse, faith, family, fear, frustration, future, god, healing, honest, honesty, hope, hopes, incest, longing, love, memories, metamorphosis, pain, photography, poetry, prayer, rape, recovery, sexual abuse, survivor, therapy, truth

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Grief

Filed under: Healing — 1 Comment

August 21, 2016

Some days I am afraid that my grief will consume me. I fear that I may never recover from this pain. I keep trying to be normal… (whatever that means) but all I manage to do is to kill my heart – and hurt the heart I most desire to bring pleasure to. I keep striving for some sense of … what?… peace? healing? wholeness? normalcy? I don’t know. I just know I am in so much pain… every day… My heart feels like it is a mangled, half-dead thing, barely beating in my breast. I don’t know exactly how to feel all of this. I don’t know how to be in this much pain. I don’t know how to be this broken. I do know that I am tired of trying to be whole. I am tired of trying to be a girl who knows happiness. I was raped. I was abused. I was ignored. I was hurt. I was molested. I was made to feel as though I was garbage and that I did not matter at all. This does not define me. It was not my fault. I do not need to apologize for these things, and I deserve to feel. I deserve to feel the weight of my past without feeling like I am making the people around me uncomfortable. My pain does not make me a bad person. My flash-backs do not make me crazy. My fear does not have to consume me. I am not what I survived. My past matters. The defense mechanisms that I developed to survive deserve to be honored – but they are no longer needed. I am safe now and I will never be back where I was. I am worth grieving. This will not last forever. One day I will breathe again.

Tags: abuse, anger, being real, choices, damaged goods, emotion, faith, family, fear, grief, healing, hope, hurt, incest, longing, loss, pain, rape, surviving abuse, survivor

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Haunted

Filed under: Photography, Poetry — Leave a comment

November 9, 2015

Haunted by memories I grasp for you and quickly push you away.

I cannot stomach this closeness yet I desire your touch – crave it – NEED it…

Fear arises as the brush of your hand resurrects ghosts thought long exorcised…

My body trembles, haunted by the abuse that still lives in my skin and in my breast, beating like a second heart.

It is chaos here… shouts, whispers, whimpers, cries…

Locked in the asylum of my mind.

Tags: abuse, adult survivor of child sexual abuse, anger, anxiety, art, art therapy, beauty, being afraind, being real, betrayal, bitterness, blessings, broken, change, child, child abuse, child molester, child-molestor, choices, cold, cult, cutting, damaged goods, danger, death, depression, despair, doubt, dreams, emotion, emotional abuse, faith, family, farm life, father, fear, feeling, flowers, free-verse poetry, freedom, frustration, fun, future, god, goddess, grandmother, grief, guilt, happiness, healing, help, home, honest, honesty, hope, hopes, incest, incest survivor, intimacy, ledgends, life, lonely, longing, loss, love, marriage, memories, metamorphosis, monster, music, nature, overcoming abuse, pagan, pain, path to healing, photography, poetry, prayer, preaching, rant, rape, recovery, relationships, sadness, self-mutilation, sex, sexual, sexual abuse, stress, suicide, summer, survival, surviving, surviving abuse, surviving incest, surviving rape, survivor, therapy, toxic parents, truth

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Unfiltered

Filed under: Memories, Random — 4 Comments

October 21, 2015

So many memories have been flooding back to me lately. There is something about the Fall that brings me back to my childhood the experiences I had then. The smell of hay, the crackle of a bonfire, the taste of chili, the crunch of leaves underfoot and the sight of pumpkins appearing on door-steps and front porches. My senses are alive with things remembered. Things forgotten are knocking on the door of my sub-conscience. It is a strange feeling to have so much anger and fear co-mingled with such a sense of nostalgia and contentment. I remember the sound of my grandmother’s voice… the soft touch of her hand on my cheek… and the twinkling blue beauty of her eyes. I also remember the tense atmosphere of my home life and the dread that I grew up feeling. I remember the harsh unpredictability of my father and the anxiety that would flood me when I heard his truck pull in the yard. I would jump up and feel this flood of fear and adrenaline – knowing that there was no way of predicting what we were in for when he walked through the door… not knowing which dad we were going to get. It is strangely amazing to me how so much good and bad can be so intertwined in one life. I know that’s the way it is… that’s life… but it still seems to defy logic. My head is buzzing with memory flashes…

…blood flowing from my wrist after my first suicide attempt and the panic/relief that I had failed… the boisterous joy of family gatherings and playing with my cousins… the humiliating, painful, surprising “smack” of my father’s hand across my face… the anticipation of a hay-ride at dark with story-telling and song… the relief I would feel after cutting myself and watching the blood flow down my legs… the smell of fresh pumpkins and the mess we would create when we carved them… the constant feeling that no matter what I did I would never be more than a disappointment… the thrill of watching for shooting stars in the cool evenings on New Moon nights…

I feel like a merry-go-round a-la Tim Burton. I honestly don’t know what to feel… I just have to continue on this journey to solidify this into one life… and make peace with that life.

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Banks Lake

Filed under: Photography — 2 Comments

October 18, 2015

My favorite local kayaking place is Banks Lake in Lakeland, GA. The view is breathtaking and the weather was absolutely perfect today – it was clear and cool and windy. I’m already ready to go again.

Tags: abuse, adult survivor of child sexual abuse, anger, anxiety, art, art therapy, beauty, being afraind, being real, betrayal, bitterness, blessings, broken, change, child, child abuse, child molester, child-molestor, choices, cold, cult, cutting, damaged goods, danger, death, depression, despair, doubt, dreams, emotion, emotional abuse, faith, family, farm life, fear, feeling, flowers, free-verse poetry, freedom, frustration, fun, future, god, goddess, grandmother, grief, guilt, happiness, healing, help, home, honest, honesty, hope, hopes, incest, incest survivor, intimacy, ledgends, life, lonely, longing, loss, love, marriage, memories, metamorphosis, monster, music, nature, overcoming abuse, pagan, pain, path to healing, photography, poetry, prayer, preaching, rant, rape, recovery, relationships, sadness, self-mutilation, sex, sexual, sexual abuse, stress, suicide, summer, survival, surviving, surviving abuse, surviving incest, survivor, therapy, toxic parents, truth

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Tag Archive: rape

Been a while…

Feelings

Anger

Prison

Giving Up

Open Letter

Grief

Haunted

Unfiltered

Banks Lake

Books I recommend

List of Thoughts

Daily Rambles

Older Thoughts

Contents

Welcome