I love how the simple beauty of a flower, butterfly, sunset, etc… can speak to us on some primal and profound level. I have found great healing in my love of photography. I am endlessly surprised by the images that capture my atttention… from sun-dapled paths to the tinies mushrooms and everything in between. I would like to share a few with you…
I feel like I am steadily climbing my way out of the darkness.
Layer by layer…healing occurs.
Soon I will emerge – transformed
My father-in-law is a monster. No, he’s not a vampire, were-wolf, zombie, mummy kind of monster…but he’s much worse. He pretends to be kind and loving to the “public” but as soon as we are alone with him he never fails to emotionally attack my husband. He has flat-out told him that he did not care that he hurt his feelings. In fact, he informed him that my husband’s feelings do not mater at all to him. In the mean-time he tells his ‘friends’ that he is just so worried about his son and he does not understand why his son is so distant of late and accuses me of tearing his son away from his family. He is truly a bully – and a pathetic one at that. He disgusts me. I know there are two-faced people in the world, that does not surprise me. What surprises me is the number of people he has been able to fool with his “poor little me” sob story. He is a widower and he plays that up all the time for sympathy extolling his goodness in standing by her side through a prolonged illness when, in truth, he cheated on her for nearly 20 years of their 40+ year marriage. I am so sick of hypocrites! I am sick of people who pretend to be family and turn on you as soon as you have an opinion differing from theirs. Color me DONE!
It’s been a rough couple of years… my life has taken so many unexpected turns and I have fought so many battles. Now I find myself feeling a little adrift. I’ve been forging ahead and fighting for my life, my marriage, my sanity. I know the war is far from over and there are battles still to come, but I seem to be enjoying a brief reprieve. I don’t know whether to be grateful or worried by the seemingly sudden stillness in my life. Balance seems to be an ongoing theme in this chapter of my life. Balance between work and play … between striving and rest … between busyness and focus. I feel constantly torn between two worlds. I know I am learning more at each pass… spiraling toward a destination rather than circling to nowhere, and that gives me some hope. I wish I could know the end result of all this. Oh for a glimpse of the future. So many hopes and dreams that are still out of reach…but I choose to believe that they are getting closer all the time.
To the person who refuses to get it
To the person who cannot see me through the mask of his own making
To the person who calls ME the monster
To the person who thinks this blog was written to hurt HIS family
You know who you are –
You Repel Me (to quote Sherlock)
You disappoint me.
You are not my judge – you are not my jury – you are not fit to judge me and you have no freaking idea what you are talking about. Don’t act all wounded and expect me to buy it. Don’t pretend righteous outrage and expect me to pity you or to cower before you. Don’t be surprised when I fight back. I’m not the person you knew. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you know me or that you have ANY right to my life…. any right to know me, to speak to me or to comment on my life in any medium. You lost any right – any claim you may have had on my life – years ago. You think Dad is so wonderful? Where were you when he was talking about testifying on Eddie’s behalf as a character witness? You think Mom is a victim? How many times have you heard her stand up for herself but allow him to bull-doze over us? You think you know me? Think again. I am no going to go along with you and pretend our family was this happy family. I am not going to pretend that Dad saying “I’m sorry if I did anything to hurt you.” is an actual apology. I am not going to pretend that Mom playing the role of the weak wounded woman is going to move me in the face of the life I’ve lived through. You do not know me. You have no idea what I am capable of. You are not welcome here. You do not want to know my heart, my thoughts? Then don’t ever come back – don’t read another word. Just walk away – it’s what you are good at.
I don’t know what it is about feeling scared…but I do enjoy watching those crazy ghost hunter shows. I was watching one tonight. I’m alone in the house and watching this spooky show, having a drink and just relaxing and letting the stress of my day just go away…then the light outside goes crazy. It’s one of those motion-sensor lights that lights up the entire back yard and I had to resist the urge to run and set the alarm. Immediately all those horror movies I love so much came back to me. I am thinking of all the bad guys I’ve ever watched while cringing and hoping that at least someone makes it out of the movie alive. I know rationally that it’s just the wind blowing the trees…or some random neighborhood cat or something completely innocuous – but my imagination runs wild and I feel that thrill of fear. After a life-time of living in fear – true fear – it’s nice to be in a place in my life that fear is re-claimed. I’m not entirely sure that would make sense to anyone but me…but I reclaim my fear. I reclaim it for myself. I know fear is a healthy emotion when it occurs naturally and that it is intended to warn us, to assist us, to serve us. In my life, fear used to rule me. No more. Now I am living from ny heart and I am so glad that I am at a place where I can enjoy fear as a healthy part of my life.
I’ve noticed lately that I am getting more comfortable in my sadness. I am so often sad but I generally hide it behind a mask of fake polite smiles and small talk or jokes. Lately I just allow myself to sit in the sadness… to allow the emotion to wash through me…to wash over me and pass on. I have found that by allowing myself to actually feel the emotion it can run its natural course and I am free to feel other things, like joy, anger, passion, fear… I’ve been numb for so long – numb and lost and I’m ready for that part of my life to be over. I am ready to feel… to feel everything – even if it hurts. Live is too precious to miss. I am tired of running – tired of hiding – tired of protecting bullies and abusers. I will not live my life in fear. I will not hide and pretend that I do not see the evil in the world. I want to do it all… I want to sing, to run, to fight, to dance, to paint, to play, to make a big mess and laugh… I do not want to spend the rest of my life in stasis. I’m ready to rise up. I want to twirl in the yard with my arms flung out and my face to the sky. I want to sword fight with sticks and I want to seek out beauty every day – in every place I am. I want to take long walks by moonlight again and not be afraid… I want to live my life again… and to think… it all began with me allowing myself to be sad… allowing myself to be.
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.
It is hard for me when I think about how Eddie’s abuse affected me. I hate that his actions have had such an influence over my life. It has tainted how I view people. It has made it nearly impossible to trust anyone – even myself. I feel isolated much of the time – afraid that if people really knew me they wouldn’t want anything to do with me. Because of what Eddie did I feel dirty and broken inside and that is not fair. I feel like I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop – waiting to be abandoned and forgotten. I grew up feeling invisible – I became the perfect chameleon, it’s how I survived.
I am still affected by his abuse today – I am so broken and so afraid. I cannot function in a healthy relationship without constant guidance and reassurance. I am afraid to have sex because I dont’ want my marriage tainted by Eddie’s touches. I don’t want to think of his hands touching me when I should be enjoying my husband’s caress. Because of the abuse I suffered as a child I feel powerless and tainted and worthless. My life is still affected in so many areas. I struggle in my marriage because I am unable to accept and trust love and affection. I am affected in my job because I struggle to find my voice. I am affected in my relationship with my family because I am still so afraid of them and I still feel crazy around them – crazy and so small.
One strength I developed because of the abuse is empathy. I truly have a heart for the suffering. I have a strongly developed sixth sense about people and their intentions. It has helped me survive. I developed a tender and caring heart and a strong desire to fight for the weak. I developed and artistic eye and a desire to make the world beautiful. I developed a rich imagination and a poet’s heart. I escaped into words, books and dreams. I found a way to wring pleasure out of almost any small thing – whether it is a gift or just the sight of a butterfly. I am a strong woman. I had to be to survive my childhood. I locked myself away inside the warehouse of my mind and kept myself save in there between the dusty shelves. If I survived this I can do anything. I WILL make it out of this. I WILL get better. I will heal. I am worth fighting for. I can do this.
Father, I thank you for the strength You gave me to overcome my past. I invite you into my heart, into my healing, into my broken places and into my marriage. Come, Jesus. Make the broken whole again…
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…..
I don’t know how to….
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:
I have:
Sometimes I:
Relating to intimacy – Sometimes I:
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’ve been absent from the electronic world for quite a while now… I’ve been working on a wonderful book called “The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse” by Laura Davis and Ellen Bass. It’s a wonderful therapeutic tool with several writing and meditation exercises. This book has taken me on a journey though my anger, my pain and my memories. Through it I am finding connections to my past in many unexpected places and through many maladaptive coping mechanisms. I am learning to identify survival techniques that helped me claw my way out of hell but are no longer serving me now. I am learning to honor those defense mechanisms and to release them. By no means have I “arrived” but for possibly the first time in my life I am consistently traveling on the road to healing. If you will permit me I would like to share more of that healing journey with you through sharing my journaling from this wonderful book as well as my writing exercises from it and an honest look at my anger and fear and the relinquishment of the same. May love and peace find you-may it find me as well.
captivatingbitter 