All About Me

This blog is an anonymous blog. This is being done as part of my counseling. When I see the pictures of me as a little girl, I know they are me yet they are not. I look at those images and I see a little girl and can describe what “she” is doing. I don’t see me. Through the years I learned coping skills that help me to compartmentalize the trauma of my childhood. Intellectually, I know what I have needed to do, but emotionally, I am locked away. I have spent my whole life not knowing who I was due to shaping my life in order to survive.

I am a survivor. I have survived 10 years of bing molested as a child beginning at the age of three. I survived beatings that have left some scars. Beatings that required my clothes having to be soaked with water to pull them off my back due to the blood having stuck to them as it dried. I have survived an alcoholic step-father who tried to kill me on more than one occasion due to protecting my mother and siblings from being beaten.

I have been made to feel that I have no value. I was conditioned to assume the blame for anything that ever went wrong so it was always my fault. I have believed years of lies that I was worthless. Had no value. Could do nothing right. I was told I was no longer my father’s daughter, that I was dead to him at age 12. It was 14 years before we ever spoke again. The revelations from those meetings left me, again dumbfounded. Speechless that a father could confess that he knew his wife was beating, keeping food under lock and key, treating you cruelly; yet believe in the lie that at least she was taking care of you.

I have made a life for myself. I have broken the horrible cycle that was started when my mother was a young girl. I AM GOOD MOTHER. I AM A GOOD WIFE…(if not a little unorganized). My children have never known the type of abuse I have and many other’s like have known.

Now it is time to finish the journey. Due to a family issue that we have been dealing with, I decided to go back into counseling after 12 years. My mother-in-law is bi-polar with out meds. She is in her late 70′s now. Her verbal abuse has always been difficult for me. She wasn’t my grandfather or uncle who molested me. She wasn’t the stepmother who brutally beat me and on occasion my brother’s. She wasn’t the alcoholic that I had to run from in the middle of the night. Verbally, she made feel the same fear and helplessness that I felt all those years ago.

I had not dealt with the emotional side of my abuse. I thought I had done enough. The level of fear that overcomes me when I hear her voice is the same fear I felt as a child.

I am the observer in this story. I am telling the story of the little girl who was hurt all those years ago with the hope of breaking the power and bondage of those memories.

I am going to have to face down the many lies I was brought up to believe.

I want to be able to help other’s who have had similar experiences, and I have, but my journey wasn’t complete. It is time to finish the healing.

I have spoken at length with my husband over these issues. He has given me insight to my own life that I have never seen. He has connected dots that have left me bereft of speech. I have been numb for so long, most of my life, that now, faced with the emotions, the fear, the grief, the anger and even the guilt the armor is cracking. I have always been afraid to feel for fear of the underlying rage that is trying to push its way up and out.

I don’t want my family to be harmed by this so that is why I took the step to re-enter counseling. God has been so good to me. He has protected me and walked with me through some of the harshest of times. He has saved me when I wanted my life to end. He has filled me with compassion for other’s who are hurting.

The numbness and lack of joy were something I have not been able to pull out from inside of me. If you are bothered by this type of story, you may not wish to read any further. It is not my intent to be graphic concerning my abuse but there will be times that what I say may be more explicit than what you, the reader, may be comfortable with reading. It will be discreet.

You may leave anonymous comments. You may not judge me. You do not have the right. Oh…and don’t be a grammar nazi. I know my writing is not the greatest and you will find lots of mistakes. It will happen when there is an emotional core dump.

Thank You………..