How do you recover from child abuse?

[frischi]

Being a survivor of physical and sexual abuse as a child I deal with it all the time. It has been decades since, but it is always there. Through out life I have struggled with my own issues about abuse towards others because of what I went through. But, I will not let that control me. I am not like the person who abused me and I will not let them control who I am today.

Counseling is the best way to go. Trying to deal with it alone is a sure fire way to go down in flames and go down hard. Facing it is important and excepting the fact that you were abused because of someone elses insecurities and mental instability is essential to getting on that road to sanity and mental wellness.

I was abused sexually by a family member and also a family friend for 10 yrs.. I was physically abused by a family member for 15 yrs. I know what is feels like and I know where your coming from. Abuse comes in many forms, but they all have the same results. And that is that we deal with it for the rest of our lives and it is how we deal with it that secures a healthy future and a lifetime of happiness with whom ever we find to spend it with.

[suga]

Well it most certainly was not you who is responsible for whoever did this to you...they chose to do it...My stbxhusband was molested by his mother and her friend at the age of 10 and seems to be both proud and hurt by it because she held him down while her stripper friend did that...I am the only person who ever confronted her on it...she decided to bring it up and cause a scene at our wedding...she denied it then finally admitted it...it was the only appology he ever recieved from her in his entire life...Im just glad he can see how ashamed she is of herself...it is nothing to be proud of...My half sister was molested for years by her uncle and I have heard some of the horrible accounts from her...she is ok now I think...she is a very good mother...she of course is angry at the man that did that to her...hate can eat away at you...and he never was punished for what he did.

[Becoming]

Welcome suga and frischi! I'm sorry for what's happened to you in your past and congratulate you for dealing with it. It's a hard road and I salute your courage.

 

How many more people have to be abused before we see all the toll this takes on people for generations?

 

I am in the throes of working myself to death AND confronting that way of abusing myself as a way of continuing in what feels familiar--abuse.

 

Work is like a drug for me. I love it; it makes me feel good, worthy, competent--all the things I don't necessarily feel apart from it but am learning to, which is why work is no longer working for me. It's just leaving me more depressed these days. And too busy to deal with it until the next time when the intensity stops and so do I.

 

Something's got to change. I just don't know how yet. But I'm learning.

[enki]

it makes me feel good, worthy, competent

 

And indeed you are! Whether you are working, supporting the Steelers, caring for your kids, helping all of us on this site, or especially, just being YOU!

 

Look in the mirror, wonderful girl! Remember how many people you have aided, comforted and inspired. (You even got "H" to open parts of his mind, hitherto unknown. That must be of immense value for him - and you - forever!)

 

All of us here are able to be "beaten, bloody, and unbowed."

 

Survivors are dangerous! Because survivors know that adversity is not fatal. Adversity is not the end. It is a new beginning!

[blind_otter]

Welcome suga and frischi! I'm sorry for what's happened to you in your past and congratulate you for dealing with it. It's a hard road and I salute your courage.

 

How many more people have to be abused before we see all the toll this takes on people for generations?

 

I am in the throes of working myself to death AND confronting that way of abusing myself as a way of continuing in what feels familiar--abuse.

 

Work is like a drug for me. I love it; it makes me feel good, worthy, competent--all the things I don't necessarily feel apart from it but am learning to, which is why work is no longer working for me. It's just leaving me more depressed these days. And too busy to deal with it until the next time when the intensity stops and so do I.

 

Something's got to change. I just don't know how yet. But I'm learning.

 

That's why I am a recovering addict, B. I have yet to figure out what it is that I need to do to find a balance. Part of me wants to walk the world restlessly and endlessly. If the path is more important than the destination. I'd rather have better scenery.

[Becoming]

I've missed you folks.

 

You can never know how much the words of encouragement and sympathy have meant to me. They've enabled me to get through a really dark time.

 

There are times when this recovery process is like struggling under water with some unknown force holding me down. I have times when I come up for air, even floating around and generally have a good time when (play Jaws theme music here) whoosh! something comes and drags me back under and I struggle and struggle some more. Sometimes ya just get weary of struggling, it seems.

 

I read recently that someone said that those who are recovering from abuse have to wrestle their blessings from life like Jacob with the angel in the Hebrew scriptures. Difference is Jacob was such a scallywag that God had to tackle and wound him to bless him. God's the one doing the abducting in that story in order to get Jacob to experience a blessing, one he wasn't always striving to connive someone out of to obtain on his own.

 

But what of those of us who are innocents who just want theirs now, thank you very much, God! How do you deal with the anger at feeling cheated out of a childhood and all the grief that forms a good part of your life's foundation?

[blind_otter]

THe story of Mary of Bethany washing Jesus' feet (I think magdalene had 7 demons cast out) - and Jesus forgiving her, telling her that her sins are great, but her forgiveness is born of the greatness of her love.

 

I wonder sometimes if part of the sacrament of reconciliation is about forgiving yourself. Coming to acceptance of what has happened to you. I don't know if that makes any sense. But it seems like, from experiencing great pain, comes a huge capacity for love as well as anger. So if you fill up your cup with love and forgiveness, there is redemption in acceptance. That sounds too cryptic.

 

I understand, B. It's cyclical. It gets good, it gets bad. After a while you see when it's starting to get bad, you scramble around trying to make it not so, and then when you're in it, you don't see how to get out until you're already through the tunnel. but maybe the way back into the light gets easier every time we go through it.

[enki]

I've missed you folks.

 

You can never know how much the words of encouragement and sympathy have meant to me. They've enabled me to get through a really dark time.

 

We have missed you just as much B. But when in dark times, you are still most welcome to contact us to go through the valley of the shadow of death with you. That is a serious offer Becoming. Please consider it. You've helped us. We owe you! (Anyway, you're special!)

 

After all, the "shadow of death" is life!

 

from experiencing great pain, comes a huge capacity for love as well as anger.

 

I agree. Let's use both love and anger. Let's take the attitude that we really deserve happiness just as much as anyone else. We on this thread all know that part of our parents' abusive behaviour was to brainwash us into thinking we didn't deserve anything pleasant.

 

Rather than looking at our own (imagined) sins, let us take fiendish delight in making ourselves as contented as possible, gaining for ourselves as much pleasure as we reasonably can. Then we can say to our parents, "Take that, you pair of losers! You tried to make me miserable, and you failed!"

 

Just two other matters Otter. That beautiful young lady in your latest avatar might have to stop tossing her hair so energetically or she may pop out of her bodice; which might be rather delicious to look at, but could lead to a nasty attack of sunburn and/or frostbite.

 

Also:

She put a Lousiana lip-lock on my love porkchop.

Don't know if this has a special meaning in the South, but I do hope she doesn't have epilepsy!

 

By the way, that was your 7770th post. 777 is the number of the Redeemer!

[SweetPea80]

I was sexually abused by 2 different family memebers when I was younger. The first time I was sexually abused I was 5, and the other time I was 12. I was also verbally, and physically abused as a child also, by my mom. My dad never yelled or hit me ever. When my parents got divorced my mom was stressed out and took a lot of her anger and frustration out on me and my brothers.

[Guest]

THe story of Mary of Bethany washing Jesus' feet (I think magdalene had 7 demons cast out) - and Jesus forgiving her, telling her that her sins are great, but her forgiveness is born of the greatness of her love.

 

I wonder sometimes if part of the sacrament of reconciliation is about forgiving yourself. Coming to acceptance of what has happened to you. I don't know if that makes any sense. But it seems like, from experiencing great pain, comes a huge capacity for love as well as anger. So if you fill up your cup with love and forgiveness, there is redemption in acceptance. That sounds too cryptic.

 

I understand, B. It's cyclical. It gets good, it gets bad. After a while you see when it's starting to get bad, you scramble around trying to make it not so, and then when you're in it, you don't see how to get out until you're already through the tunnel. but maybe the way back into the light gets easier every time we go through it.

 

 

 

Thank God there are some graces like this forum on the internet. I came across this site in a search for indepth conversation and some answers to a major problem in my life. I am not an abuse survivor, but the woman I love, my fiancee, is. We have been together for 10 years. We want to move forward and marry, but we have some big problems. I am afraid, and aware, that the abuse in her past has caused some very serious "effects" on her life, which I am seeking some advice towards. I am writing because I have found a incredible depth and maturity in the posts I have read, like the one above, and a serendipty in need. I need to know how I can ride out the storm of my fiancee's past, with her. (I am not negating my imperfections and problems, but I am being honest in saying this is the biggest root that needs to be dealt with). My question is, can you be of help?

 

Leaving details simple, I will simply first state the my fiancee suffered physical abuse (violence) at the hand of her father when she was just a little girl. Her father beat her. She is the oldest of 2 sisters. She is Italian. Her sister did not receive the same abuse (I am told she was more co-operative). However my fiancee claims to that she was more rebellous - in the face of this abuse. My fiancee is in her late 30s now. The search words that I Googled to find this website were "overbearing mother, abuse". This is the other main root of our problem. Her mother is more than overbearing, she is suffocating. My fiancee is apparantly the only reason for her mother's existence. She worries about her constantly. She treats her like a child. They sleep in the same room together! (Her mother and father do not sleep together). She calls her on her cellphone every 2 or 3 hours, often just to check on where she is, what her plans are, did she eat, etc.

 

When I met my fiancee she was not living with her parents. In fact we met in another country. After 7 years together, living in this country, my fiancee had a family crisis and returned to her homeland and parents home. She has been there ever since, to the detriment of our relationship. We are trying to make a marriage work, but my fiancee is finding it impossible to separate or leave her mother, yet at the same time her life with her mother is so tense, it is full of constant argument and jousting. It appears very immature quite frankly, but even though it is so obviously overbearing and extreme my fiancee cannot seem to help but choose in front of all others.

 

I have sacraficed a great deal to keep our relationship together, but I have a growing anger and resentment at her mother (and father), because of her mother's overbearing presence in her life, and her parents unhappy marriage. I also have an anger at my fiancee for these same reasons.

 

I am at the point where I know I cannot marry her unless we know that she is ready to deal with the unhealthiness of this situation and hopefully get a better handle on it. My fiancee started going to some therapy 4 or 5 years ago, but she stopped and hasn't dealt with these things since.

 

I am hoping that, as survivors yourselves, anyone in this forum can share some stories and reflections that come out of your own experiences and your own wisdom, in order to help me to understand my fiancee and my situation better. We both want marriage, but these problems are really hurting us.

 

Thank you

[enki]

I am at the point where I know I cannot marry her unless we know that she is ready to deal with the unhealthiness of this situation and hopefully get a better handle on it. My fiancee started going to some therapy 4 or 5 years ago, but she stopped and hasn't dealt with these things since.

 

Thank you for your interesting story, of which the quoted paragraph is the essence.

 

Your fiancee has two problems. The first is her father's physical abuse when she was a child. The second (and the one which most preoccupies you) is her abnormal attachment to her mother. The degree to which that is consequence rather than subsequence is problematic, but peripheral at present. Whatever father's pathology toward your fiancee might have been, thirty years ago, the main problem now is her unresolved dependancy on her mother.

 

If your fiancee has ceased therapy and won't deal with her issues, only two things will jolt her into honest reappraisal of her situation; mother's death or your departure.

 

We cannot change anybody else. We can only change ourselves, but sometimes in doing so, we find that others have 'changed' too.

 

The crucial question for you to ask yourself is, what do you gain (yes, I said gain) from living in a situation where you may never have a full relationship with your fiancee unless her mother dies, and perhaps not even then?

 

Should you care to share the answer with us, we would be happy to go with you to the next step.

[Love Hurts]

I am sorry you deal with depression .................. over your lost childhood. The small person that should have been protected, was violated by the one man she trusted to watch over her.

 

I know........... Like you I will not talk about this...............To me it happened.

It is always there someplace. Yet *I choose* to forget it.

 

I forgave and love the man that took what he should not have taken.

 

For me ............ I pretend............. I simply pretend........... it never happened. ... gone. done. over.... and I forgave......... Well that's my way of dealing....................... I pretend............ somehow it doesnt bother me.... I have other problems ............ at this stage of life... I focus on the now and what the heck am I to do to solve this new darn mess?

 

I feel life has so much to get through and presents problems I am to meet head on and deal with..... How can I handle the now if I refuse to let go of my past pain?

It would be overwhelming to me..... I carry all I can at this place in time.

 

I pray that through prayer and forgiveness you let the violator go.

Tell that little girl it was wrong, it's not her fault, and that God loves her.

She survived for some reason............... now live like your alive and not just here.

 

Go to an amuzement park and scream your head off on a roller coaster ride. Take a vacation. Do something different... and let go.........

if you refuse to let go............ you will never mend.

 

Ask yourself ... for what pupose do I hold onto the nightmares....

Do you want something from your violator or violators... What would you want of them... If you say Why? They will tell you they were sick.

If they tell you they are sorry.... you can't except it. That's not good enough.

Would you want them dead...? I don't think so.

 

You hold on for some reason......

 

Now you alone have the burden to say,,,,,,,,,,,,,, I forgive,,, what was done to that little girl in me............. cry for her one last time.....

and let go...............breath............ walk away............. it's a new year, a different world. Someone needs you to be ok. I don't know you and I want you to be ok.

 

Only just............................................ let go

 

God Bless

[Becoming]

Thanks, Love! You're right, of course. I'm just finding this whole processs of letting go more involved than I expected.

 

I just stuffed everything down and lived for so long until one day I found myself depressed for absolutely no reason. Great job, great kids, decent H, nice house, complete with cat, dog, and minivan. Everything I'd stuffed into the closet for years and years that I thought I'd forgotten just came tumbling out.

 

So I'm in the process of re-storing everything. And it's taking longer than I'd like--like cleaning out a messy dead person's house, looking at everything, deciding if you want to keep it, give it away, store it, or burn it.

 

But yes, ultimately, BOt's right: it's about forgiveness and reconcilliation. It really is the only way to break the cycle of abuse. It may not just be about forgiveness and reconcilliation for the perps of the abuse (it's not always possible or advisable). But with yourself and what you've done as a result of abuse, what you've come to believe about yourself and the world, and what you consciously choose for yourself now over against lies learned. And, as in the movie The Mission, forgiveness and the process of repentance (180 degree turnaround) actually begins with letting go of that big heavy load of crap we've been carrying around. In fact, the Greek word for forgiveness in the Bible literally means releasing. So BOt and Love are soothsayers of the Biblical kind, it seems.

 

If I could pass on one thing to younger folks who've been abused it would be the advice to get help by doing therapy with someone who deals with survivors of abuse as soon as you leave home. And trust God, a God big enough to take all the anger we sometimes fling His/Her way. There's wisdom in the 12 steps of AA that works for all kinds of problems as a spiritual process of healing.

 

God and I are good most days, but yes, I always need the advice to let go and let God:) , so thanks! I keep trying to take it all up and do it alone, believing the lie that I learned early--that I'm on my own in the universe and there won't be anyone there to take care of me. My head and my spirit know this is false, but my heart is obdurate still.

 

MzP: Have you found an SRRI that allows you to have a normal sex life yet? Have you tried Welbutrin? It doesn't have the sexual side effects and is also for anxiety (tho in my case it made me anxious!). Nefazadone also doesn't have the sexual side effects, and it's made me feel much better, but I now have to watch my liver (like it does tricks or something:rolleyes:). Because I live in chronic pain, too, though, I'm in the slow process of switching to Cymbalta. I'll let folks know my experience of that, for what it's worth. Seems our bodies are all different even though many drs. keep trying to treat us as though we're all supposed to be the statistical norm. The last thing you need when you're depressed is to say goodbye to the big O. One of the healing therapies for those whose bodies have been abused is pleasure, particularly intimate physical pleasure with another human being.

 

Sweetpea, I'm sorry this has happened to you. How does it feel to have told the truth? It took me a LONG time to be comfortable saying, let alone seeing in writing, what actually happened to me. It can open that closet door and leave ya feeling overwhelmed with all the crap coming out. You ok?

 

And Guest, you have graced us with your presence and a great question. Enki represents the best of LS. Her questions are right on target. Of course, you had your fiance for 7 yrs. before you saw firsthand the hold her mother has on her. It sounds like the bond war buddies have with one another--and emotionally incestuous (there's a book on emotional incest by that title that might be helpful). You might want to check out the threads on family ties that bind too tightly on the family threads. Survivors of abuse who haven't dealt with their myriad of issues are no picnic to live with and much more likely to be abusive themselves, a knowledge that can lead us to simply stuff all strong, conflictual emotions because we're scared of all those emotions, afraid of what we might do with them--i.e. hurt the ones we love--which can lead to us being doormats and automatons trying to please everyone . . . . and losing ourselves in the process. Instead of "living like you're alive," as Love Hurts said so well, ya live like you're "just here" and THAT's what's sad for everyone involved. Instead of real people, we end up living with ghosts. Like in Toni Morrison's Beloved. Only hopefully without all the completely crazy stuff that happened there!

[Mz. Pixie]

I've missed you Becoming, and this thread! Good to see you again and I'm glad you're progressing!!

 

I'm taking Wellbutrin right now and tapering down my Paxil. Still no O's yet but I can ALMOST get there which is an improvement.

 

Still in therapy, which is going okay.

 

Haven't seen Bot around lately- worried about her a bit. Check in ole wise one!

[Becoming]

Great to hear from you MzP! Glad to hear things are ticking along and you're tackling the problems, which is no mean feat when you're depressed.

[tinktronik]

I've missed you Becoming, and this thread! Good to see you again and I'm glad you're progressing!!

 

I'm taking Wellbutrin right now and tapering down my Paxil. Still no O's yet but I can ALMOST get there which is an improvement.

 

Still in therapy, which is going okay.

 

Haven't seen Bot around lately- worried about her a bit. Check in ole wise one!

I'm a bit worried about Bot too, she went to Europe a few weeks ago and no word since . Perhaps she's decided to stay? I'm glad you've taken an active stance about your situation MzP . Good for you.

[SamJam Guest]

That first step in my own life was to consider with great fairness and objectiveness, who I really am in the world and even the universe. I was fair with myself. For example, I realized that I was a good musician but not a very good carpenter. I didn't place goals and expectations on myself that common sense would have shown were impossible for me. At the same time, I didn't allow for under-achievement.

 

If you are serious about changing your life and breaking the abuser's power over you, you must take a stand and follow through. Stop being the victim of shame, guilt and resentment. Those things will shatter your image. And they're not even real!

 

Once I had the correct image of myself, I pressed toward that mark. That image I held, did not reflect that of a victim. That was the old person. If my abusers want to continue their hold, they will be holding onto a dead person. The one they abused, no longer exists.

 

In the end, I found that most of the answers were right in my own heart. In the end I found that the hardest person to face, was myself and what I had become through my hate and resentment of those who had abused me. One day I was able to set them free. They owe me nothing. Their reward will be determined by a far greater power than me.

 

This is a very condensed version of all that I did to find my own "salvation" but I teach the entire version to others everyday.

 

In the meantime, I run my website, play my music, and help as many people as I can. Nowadays, instead of complaining to God about all the things I wanted that I never got, I thank Him for all the things I never got that I

[Becoming]

SamJam--Wise words indeed. Thanks. Posted at 3:33 (according to my clock), a traditional time of revelation according to some ancient views. It is often a time when I awake at night with the gift of insight, so your words struck me as "from on high." And so they are to me. Thanks.

 

I heard a sermon the other day about love and forgiveness that was done in such a way that I saw in a way I hadn't ever quite before that love and forgiveness are the same thing, for suffering is just a part of loving someone who is different, who can't love in the ways we want, so that forgiveness has to be a continual part of loving.

 

Of course, that doesn't mean that we stay attached to an abuser. Love cannot tolerate abuse and has to go away in some form in order to survive. We are born as love to love. This is simply who we are all created to be. So in the end we are nothing if not love.

 

But we have to do what is necessary in order to be that love, which means to cut off contact with our abusers sometimes, or to limit contact, and always lay boundaries down and enforce them--all of which are hard to do--so that we really can become the change we wish to see--which, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I find I've had in my heart all along, as SamJam says.

 

Ultimately love really is an act of will--a deciding to be who we were really put on the planet to be--despite the lies we were fed that made that more difficult. We choose every minute of every day whether or not to be the love we are.

[Guest]

SamJam--Wise words indeed. Thanks. Posted at 3:33 (according to my clock), a traditional time of revelation according to some ancient views. It is often a time when I awake at night with the gift of insight, so your words struck me as "from on high." And so they are to me. Thanks.

 

I heard a sermon the other day about love and forgiveness that was done in such a way that I saw in a way I hadn't ever quite before that love and forgiveness are the same thing, for suffering is just a part of loving someone who is different, who can't love in the ways we want, so that forgiveness has to be a continual part of loving.

 

Love and for giveness was a very different thing for me than I had always thought. And I only speak for myself. I never try to delegate morality or what one should believe. I just know what has worked for me.

 

I always thought you had to "love" someone to "forgive" them. I thought hate was the "feeling" you have when you hold someone responsible for some tragic event in your life. I found out that I was mistaken.

 

I always thought love was "feeling". Once again, I believe that I was mistaken. I was confusing "fondness" and "resentment" with the "action" words, "love" and "hate".

 

I began to see one day that love and hate were always descibed as "action words" in the bible. By something as simple as giving someone a drink of water, you are "loving" them. Even though you may not feel like spending any time with them, you have loved them by simply supplying a need.

 

By forgiving someone, you are simply "writing off a debt". So, I simply made a contract with God. I stated to God that these people owed me nothing. And, that I did not hold them responsible or accountable for any part of my life. I asked him to "let it slide" for them because if they really understood, they would have never done those things to me.

 

Every time those feelings of resentment came back to me, I reminded myself of the new contract I had with God. Within a year or so. I came to realize that I could think of no one that I had any special feelings of resentment for.

I was so amazed that I started "doing" the "action" of love towards people I really did not care to be around.

 

The most amazing thing started to happen. I started to worry about some of these folks. Like, were they gonna be warm enough tonight, and would they have some coffee when they got up. I cried with a man who told me about his daughter who had passed away from and over-dose. He couldn't put his life back together. So many things happened like that.

 

I began to see my own need for forgiveness and then I began to show how much I valued that forgiveness in the way I gave it to others that had "screwed up". In the end, love, hate and forgiveness became the action words for me that allowed me to see how man falls so short.

 

God never told us to "feel" something. He only said "do" something. He is wise. He knows that a person can't continually do kind acts of love toward another person he despises, without giving in to "feelings" of care, and concern for their well-being. Yet "perfect love" will NOT enable an abuser or user.

Perfect love knows the difference. Perfect love will correct them. And you.

 

Wisdom loves those who love her. A fool despises correction, but a wise man is surrounded by many counselors. You are a blessed person "Becoming". Sometimes God waits to see what we will do with our blessing. God "waited" to see what Adam would call the animals. I hope I don't keep Him waiting too long.

 

I don't blame God for all the things I always wanted but never got, I thank Him for all the things I never wanted and never got!

[Becoming]

Beautiful, Guest. Simply beautiful.

 

I am blessed to be surrounded my so many wise counselors on this journey. Thank you.

 

So many people think love and forgiveness mean you have to continue to be in abusive relationships, which can be dangerously destructive in many ways. But you're right: love never wants another's harm--including ours.

 

By holding others accountable, we're in the God position. The account books have been torn up--no Santa Claus God keeps track of naughty & nice--as Paul says in II Cor. 5. This is so hard for us to wrap our minds around in our law and order world.

 

But love LOVES and in the light of that love, lesser actions are judged and encouraged to embrace love's light. By seeing others from this more divine point of view, we can understand and feel sad for those who hurt and destroy. They're missing out on so much.

 

That doesn't mean we choose to live with them. If we're walking in the light of love, we can't be with those who chose to hurt--whether temporarily in withdrawal or permanently. We just do what we want to out of love, expecting nothing in return. No tit for tat. No account books.

 

And thus we are free to simply love.

 

This is how I've managed to stay connected to my parents, who have their good qualities despite past actions. I expect nothing of them. I do what I want/can with them out of LOVE (not a feeling, but the universal reality). I expect nothing. And by golly, sometimes I'm surprised to find LOVE meets me there.

[samjam]

I was the "guest" that posted that last message "Becoming". Thank you for your kind words. I hadn't got a chance to register yet but I have done that since.

 

I work with many ex offenders that have grown up either without fathers or with something worse. Most of them were abused either mentally, physically, sexually or all three. I am so sadly amazed at what people can do to each other. Yet I am resolved to "not be moved" by it. I can only help people if I remain objective.

 

I grew up in a home where sexual abuse , physical abuse, and emotional abuse were an everyday occurrance. One day I came to some crossroads. I was able to see in a "big picture", what that did to my life. I was 35 before I discovered "the thief".

 

Suddenly, with that knowledge, it became my life's objective to fix that. That's when things really got bad. It was almost like something evil had a hold on me and was now fighting desparately to either hold on to me or destroy me completely.

 

Through it all, I never lost sight of my original objective. I wanted to forgive everyone who had ever offended me. That took several years. But I came to realize that forgiving myself took much longer.

 

I finally began to realize that laying my life down for another and giving my life for another, didn't always mean "taking a bullet" for them. Sometimes just giving my time was giving my life away.

 

I was a late bloomer but fianlly did blossom. Love met me half way.

[Becoming]

I know what you're talking about with re: to fighting evil plaguing you. I even looked up rites of exorcism to see what I could learn about the process, and it does feel like what we're really involved in is exorcism. Not in the Hollywood sense, but in the deeply spiritual sense within ourselves. And when you start naming the demons and telling them they need to go, they get madder and intensify efforts, trying to make the old ways of relating to the world work even more--despite the fact that they hurt and condemn us to a kind of vicious cycle of hell even after all the abuse has stopped.

 

But I don't need to talk to you about hell. You've lived it. You found the pathway out and now you're helping others to walk that path. You are a wounded healer of the highest spiritual dimension.

 

My therapist has been working with me uncovering all the feelings/fears I had stuffed since before I was probably able to talk--all the feelings/fears that keep dragging me down to where I feel like I'm drowning under water. But as I let all of those fears come to consciousness, they lose their power to drag me under. Basically, I am learning how to surf all these feelings, ride their waves and when I have a wipe out, get right back up.

 

And I'm learning that the voice of God, as at creation, is upon the face of the water, as we sang today in church (Psalm 29). When I'm on top of the feelings, letting them be underneath me with me moving through and with them, I can act from my spiritual center in accord with the voice of God. If I'm always down under the water, I'm churning and tumbling and drowning, coming up long enough to gasp some air in to stay alive, but just barely.

 

I want to live, really live. Surf's up!

[samjam]

all the feelings/fears that keep dragging me down to where I feel like I'm drowning under water.

 

Thats an interesting concept. I used to have this nightmare when I was growing up. I dreamed the room I was in, was shrinking and crushing me. I stopped having that dream for a while and one day at school I recieved a concusion and the dream suddenly started up again and went on for some years.

 

I had alot of nightmares through those years but I'll tell you something strange: One day I began to read a book called, "Adult Survivers of Child Abuse". When I read about the graphic desciptions of the way peoples lives were screwed up by it, I imediately began to recognise myself.

 

. As I read those words which seemed to use my life as a role model for "the abused" I began to break down and crumble inside. This is what I had been battling for so many years and I didn't even know! I completely fell apart. I was locked up in a suicide watch clinic. There was nothing else to read! I hated this book, then I hated my brother, then I hated myself for letting all those people do this to me.

 

One night I had a dream that I was flying. Anyone who knows about dreams said that I was about to experience a "new freedom". Shortly before that, I had announced to God that I still hated all those people, but I wanted to tell Him that they owed me nothing! I asked God not to do anything to them because of me. I told Him that I still felt all the things I told Him I did, but I still wanted to write off their debt to me. I wanted to leave this earth with no grudge against anyone.

 

That dream came true. I don't know how but I no longer feel the resentment. I am free. Since I introduced the concept of "no debt to me", there has been a lot less to think about and a lot more time to get my life back. I am working on a CD in which I play all the instruments, wrote all the music and words, and do all the voices including my own back ups. I'm also getting ready for my first big concert of the summer. I also run a website.

 

I am not a strong person or a hero or anything else. There must be others who have done far better than me. I just believed that God didn't make no junk. We decide if we are junk or not. I decided otherwise. I don't mean to be time-consuming but sometimes telling our own stories can be just as much a therapy as treatment itself.

 

Don't you EVER give up! If you are afraid you might quit, email me and I will send you an "e-slap". But don't you ever quit. I will not deliver myself into the hand of my enemy, and if I am given the chance, I will surely do everything I can to snatch you out of your enemy's hand. AND, I am not afraid to dream anymore.

[Becoming]

Your post, SamJam, has made me cry tears of relief and thanksgiving.

 

I used to have the very same dream growing up as a child--that the walls were closing in. I would try to hold the walls with my legs and the ceiling with my arms, but I couldn't. I had forgotten these nightmares. They were so intense I often thought they were real as a child. I was often sure there were Indians who were going to scalp me under my bed at night (not very PC, I know!). I had other recurring dreams/fears/night terrors that were almost hallucinations--of lambs on these plaques in my room coming to life and trampling me, of the seven dwarves of Snow White fame (also on my wall) talking to me, which scared the bejesus out of me.

 

I can look back on these now as an adult and see one very scared child with no one there to comfort her. And now I see why I have so much anxiety: no one taught me what to do with all that fear. All I learned was to shut up and behave or else. But all I learned to do when I was afraid was control--myself and later my environment. When I can't control, I run.

 

There's got to be a better way.

 

No wonder I talked regularly to God from a young age. It was all I had. But it was enough. More than enough.

 

I think the process of restoration is like that TV show Clean Sweep (am I now repeating myself?). You gotta drag all your crap from the basement or garage or attic or wherever you just throw it in a hurry to move on to other things out into the light to look at it all and decide what to do with it all--toss it, keep it, store it, or give it away or sell it.

 

Except this past is ours to keep; we can't throw it away. I think I've been trying to give it away or throw it away (exorcise it), and I can't. It's part of what made me me, and some of that is actually good in an odd way. I am much more compassionate and aware of those on the margins who might be hurting. I can read a room's/situation's spirit very quickly. I certainly don't want this out in the living room anymore, but it's time for it to go where we store all our suitcases that are empty. It's just an old beat-up bag emptied of its power, yet full of potential to carry us to exciting new places.

 

But getting to this realization has been a trip, huh? Full of self-destructive jaunts of one form or another--innocent embodiments of the lies perpetrated upon the vulnerable. At the end of the day, we have to decide who to/who not to listen to. And I'm going with God on this one--I am awesomely made.

 

But I may need to take you up on that e-slap sometime :laugh:. And so we help one another along. For all its pain, life's also a delightful journey.

[samjam]

Becoming, there were alot of times in my life that I thought I was the only one. I thought if someone knew this or that about me they would hate me or think I was weird and laugh at me. Of course I always had to hide something. I never had anyone to talk to because I could never be myself. No wonder I became an entertainer! I could stand in front of thousands of people and be an entirely different person.

 

My abusers had taught me well. I knew from their teaching that if anyone ever found out about it, I would be the laughing stock of the world. I was taught that it would wreck my family and my life. It never occurred to me to ask them, "If that was true, why did they do that to me to start with"? It was like they shared no guilt in it. It was my fault.

 

So many times people like us never find anyone we can completely be ourselves with or talk about anything. Most people wouldn't say why but they would be backing out the door saying, "Well hey! Look at the time!"

 

A while back my daughter had gone through some stuff in her marriage and she told me one day that of all the things she ever learned from me, my saying, "Pain builds character if you let it" stuck out the most in her mind. She had no one she could talk to about it because all her "freinds" were busy telling her it was her own fault.

 

But Dad just said, It'll all look a lot different in the morning sweetie". "I love you always and you're my child no matter how old you are or how much trouble you're in." She looked at me and said, "You're always on my side even when I'm wrong!" I said, "That's because it's where I belong. I don't fit in on the other side."

 

What you said about it making you a better person in a way....I think that I'm the kind of father I am because of the kind of father I had. Once when I was five, I ran to meet my dad as he was pulling in the drive from work. He pushed me out of his way knocking me down so he could get past me to pet the dogs and give them his leftover twinkies. The pain I felt in my heart was so much worse than the pain I had from breaking my wrist when I fell down, I didn't even know my wrist was broke for several hours.

 

That wasn't too bad of a day because he didn't beat anyone up. Just one day in the life of a 5 year old. Another day in the life of another 5 year old involved me slamming on my brakes in a walmart paking lot and running as fast as I could to get to a screaming little girl before a pick-up truck did. In the pick up was two guys who looked like they just escaped from alcatraz. They floored it when they saw me and sped off.

 

I took her into wallmart and had them page her parents. When her parents got to the counter I blew up at them about watching their child. But they remained calm and asked me who I was. I said, "I'm Nobody!" and stomped off.

 

When I saw that little girl so terrified and lost, my heart was broken for her. I wonder if I would have felt that way if I had not known the terror she was feeling? Would I have gotten that mad at her parents? Would I have spent so much time with my son taking him hiking and bike riding and camping out? I even played G.I. Joe with him when he was 10 and I was 35. I bought us some Cobra army rafts and we went on a 14 mile trip down the Fox river in Wisconsin and Illinois.

 

I wonder if I would have spent so much time talking with him about his role as a husband, father, and a man. And if it's true that little girls marry a guy just like their daddy, I wonder who my daughter would be married to now if it weren't for my pain.

 

I once asked God to spare my children and give me any pain or suffering that might be intended for them. I believed for a while that he answered my prayer and so I didn't mind. But one day He asked me, "How will they learn to love?" I thought about that. Like you, I also said, "There has got to be a better way!" I was right. My son is a better man than me and my daughter is married to a better man than me. Because of that, I know God gave me something better than I asked for.

 

It goes something like this: Sow a thought and reap an action...sow an action and reap a habit....sow a habit and reap a character....sow a character and reap a destiny. Pain is only needed when nothing else works. God knows when to pull the plug.

 

Have a blessed day