I don’t see what you see

This is between you and you love

When she was a young girl, before the insidious abuse began, it was just the 3 of them. Her mama would often make her way into the single bathroom they all shared and look in the mirror beside her then 7 year old daughter and smile. “Do you think we look alike?” she would ask. Daughter grinning back at her pretty mama, “yes!” They would giggle and go about their grooming and silliness before the school bell rang and her pretty mama would head off to work. She was learning at a very young age what being a soft, feminine, sweet little girl was by watching and learning from her very young mama. At 26 years old, she was the most beautiful, kind person in this girl’s life. She loved her with all her heart and she knew her mama did too.

They were essentially growing up together, but she also knew that mama was the adult and she had to follow her rules. Her big brother was only 16 months older than her and he loved them both, but somewhere he began growing up faster than she did. Maybe this is what happens to a young man when there isn’t a daddy around. She loved her big brother. They had fun playing outside, riding bikes and skateboards, tossing the football and playing catch. No one ever told her she couldn’t play like the boys and when his friends came over, they didn’t mind having the little sister tag along, much. She had her own friends too, but being with the boys was fun.

As she got a little older, this eventually started to fade. Either way, she was outgrowing them or they quit liking the baby sister hanging around. This is when that new man came into mama’s life and our lives began to turn upside down. Mama gradually stopped visiting her in the bathroom mirror and she was beginning to look elsewhere for validation and approval. She was turning the corner on adolescence when a young lady desperately needed her mama to keep teaching her about being that soft, feminine, young lady she was emerging into. She was losing her, or was mama losing herself?

Her teenage years were approaching and while other girls seemed to struggle with the normal issues of confidence, self esteem and courage, she continued to spiral down in her own self worth and doubt about her appearances. Boys were the topic amongst all these girls she was getting to know in her junior high days and she was becoming more shy with every passing day. Attention she received embarrassed her and she didn’t quite know what to do about it. She secretly had crushes on this boy and that one, but that was all she knew, how to like them, but not talk to them. She was getting good at hiding.

By the time she was in 8th grade, her family had moved to a new area which meant she had to start a brand new school and make new friends. This was especially difficult for the extra quiet and shy girl she had become. He immediately liked the new girl on the block and by that winter had become her first boyfriend. She had gone from admiring boys from afar to holding hands in public and at school with this assertive young man and she liked it. He was well liked and everyone knew him in this tiny little school. She quickly made a handful of new friends and was no longer angry about being uprooted from the only home she had ever known. This didn’t increase her confidence or boost her self esteem, but it did create an addiction to love and affection that would affect her relationships from there on out.

She learned that being with that special someone no matter the cost, was always better than being alone. This was the pattern she had established at the very young age of 15 when they entered their sophomore year in high school still a couple. What can you possibly know at that age? Was being in a committed, long term relationship normal at their age? Apparently to them it was. He told her often of her beauty and built her up the best he could, but she couldn’t receive his words of her external looks when she was fighting an internal battle for so many years now.

This would go on for years to follow, clear into adulthood. Her inner beauty so lacking in the strength and confidence a father typically instills in his little girl early on. Having an absent bio daddy and an abusive, substitute, narcissistic step monster who began objectifying her at age 14, she just wanted to be invisible and she worked hard to succeed at that. Her mama had long since been able to replace any of the hurtful, demeaning words that humiliated her since she herself was suffering most of the abuse from this monster. Her once, beautiful, spirited, lovely mama was just gone. Deep in the pits of despair she was cast and there she remained until her death.

By the time that young lady was married and a mama with 3 babies of her own, she had attempted to follow the beauty regiment she had learned at such a young age. She often recalled those intimate, special moments buried in her memories she shared with her mama. She recoiled at remembering his disturbing leering and twisted innuendos and once again chose to be invisible, rejecting the advances of her own husband and father of her children. Her head was muddled and certainly fucked up as she thought, what sort of woman doesn’t welcome the compliments of her own husband? Surely there is something horribly wrong with me she thought, but still she couldn’t shake off the shivers that haunted her. Don’t look at me, don’t see me and please, whatever you do, just don’t notice me.

It would be years later, five years post divorce that for the first time in her life, there was a man who did in fact, not only notice her and made her tummy flip, she welcomed his advances and wanted him to indeed see her. After the first 6 months or so his love bombing had hooked her so deeply she couldn’t get enough of his attention and longed for more. At some unknown point in time, after all the confidence and uplifting he had poured into her, she had changed her appearance to the point that he took notice of people noticing her and he loved that. As long as she was by his side, protecting her from other men, she felt safe. For the first time in her life, she thought she had been found and actually loved.

A secure sense of belonging overcame her for the first few years. One day she saw something different looking in the mirror at this indescribable image, she no longer recognized the lady looking back at her. The closer she gazed at the reflection, the more distorted and unfamiliar the features became. She had quietly been slipping away and was reverting back to that young girl, desiring nothing more than to be invisible once again. She had become her beautiful, lost mama after all. Fuck.

The compliments and uplifting expressions they keep tossing at her, are words and verbalized observations of her outward appearance. They haven’t matched her inside disturbance since she was that 7 year old, standing next to her mama, staring in the looking glass. Now she says to them…

Stretching for her true self again

“I don’t see what you see…”

🧖🏼‍♀️✍🏻

Still more crap under the bullshit

As if grieving during the painful process of a loss isn’t enough. She thought she had dug her way down to the delusional bottom of the pile and wait, oh yes, there is another heap to dismantle. She had begun to breathe, even find a little peace now and then as she made her way through those still, sometimes agonizing days. She actually found her smile again.

The stages of grief, she can recite those off the top of her head, but more importantly, she understands them when they hit. “Oh, you again, fuck off”, but she didn’t mean it. Embrace each one. Look it square in the face little one. We are survivors, sure, but really, we are resilient fighters and most of all, important as fuck.

She took her almighty shovel out today and said, “alright crap, let’s just see what other bullshit you have for us today” and with one sturdy plunge, the hunt was on. For fuck sake, she thought she had uncovered this one, but there it was in all its glory, hiding like the coward who put it there. “I see you” she said, “and you can no longer hide from me”. As she fought deliberately to force the pile apart, she felt the all too familiar sting of tears welling up in her eyes. What the fuck now? Haven’t we shed enough of these for all we’ve been through girl? As she thought these words to herself, she remembered what she had learned (again) from her oldest, long time friend in her world, “cry till you’re dry honey”. How the fuck is there anything left?

Ah, it was beginning to make sense to her. Every layer has another story to tell and all the cover up is eroding away to tell you what you need to know love, one small piece at a time. We can’t possibly take the 9 years from the most current abuser, the 18 years from the one before and the 10 years from the original source of childhood where it all began and have it magically be healed, over and done with it. It just doesn’t work like that. We have more work to do and so it continues.

Here we stand, together but alone, digging, sifting and sorting through the debris and rubble we have been left with. Let’s call this here, “experience”. Some would rather happily shove this shit under a great big rock and never look at again. Others, like us girl, will not only take it out from the dark place of which it’s been buried, grab the microscope and start the deep internal examination. Let’s call this here, “analysis”. This part of the process will help us determine the “whys, how comes and what for’s”. All the answers to these inquiries are crucial to why the fuck we do what we do, love who we love, follow and attach to what’s familiar, accept the unacceptable and tolerate the intolerable. Let’s call this here, “lessons”. The question that often arises during this portion is, “why is this happening?” When the better, more affective one would be, “what am I getting out of this, what am I learning?” No one wants to believe that the mounds of bullshit they’re uncovering and discovering is actually useful information for their own growth, but it truly is beneficial to the sometimes excruciating, always imperative, healing path.

What we will find next is becoming like a treasure hunt to learning who she really is, on her own, with no other outside influences controlling her thoughts and emotions, her soul and her body, just her and her alone on this fabulous ride called life. Why then does our princess in the story of her newfound life keep bumping up against more wreckage that can sometimes halt her in the middle of the deserted road? She asks herself this often while she keeps pushing on.

It is in the ashes where beauty remains. Yeah, yeah, she has this expression down cold having had her spirit burned to the ground and torn down, both literally and metaphorically. Each time she has risen, more grateful than the time before, but she has grown weary of them all. Let’s call this here, “strength”. “Diamonds are created under pressure and can cut through glass. A mighty oak grows strong in contrary winds. A palm tree might bend but it won’t break.” She often relates herself to these well defined comparisons and smiles, then wonders for how long she must endure and drudge through the remaining piles. It all comes down to educating your brilliant, sweet, smart, feisty ass girl and so she digs a little deeper into the soil of her soul…

🧖🏼‍♀️✍🏻

Life is but a dream, or is it?

Where did you go, she asks herself night after night as the darkness engulfs her every thought with delight.

She reached for him, pulling back an empty sheet. Are you coming home soon, she wonders inside her private, deepest desire. She was sure he’d be here when she woke in the daylight hour.

The sun streamed across her face, kissing her gently and for a moment she smiled thinking it was him, feeling the warmth on her bare skin.

She peeked out of the corner from one eye. A sleepy smile emerging from her lips, it was all but a dream, such a beautiful cry.

He reached over to her side of the bed, wanting desperately to pull her in as he’d done every day for so long, yet when he felt over to the edge pulling back his own empty arm, he awoke more to realize her form truly gone.

He flicked the light on as he’d so often do, read for awhile just to get him through.

Off goes the light with a toss of the tablet and glasses too, sighing a deep groan from his chest, pounding so slow, he lies there and wonders why, trying to rest.

Now separated by his very own hand, she’s nowhere near, lying there without her, both left trying to understand.

Could he have opened himself up to her? Would she have welcomed his heart, he isn’t sure.

So much time has passed them by. Somehow they let it all fade away or wouldn’t continue to try.

Her balance was wobbly, but she didn’t know how to shake it all out. His forceful ways made her afraid, kept her living in fear with so much doubt.

She wouldn’t talk, living in the darkest room, not telling him any truths how deep the loneliness loomed.

Where had he gone, so far out of reach, she imagined he’d grown weary of his baby girl that he’d wanted to teach.

She was so good, exquisite and bright, she knows what the magic 8 ball said in all her glory that night.

He loves her more than he knows. He told her now and then. She sparkles and shines and is light on her toes.

She weeps not for him while she sleeps anymore, but dreams of him nightly, his breath on her neck as he gently grazes her lightly.

His love for her grows a little each day as he figures out what makes him happy and choosing to stay.

The words come freely and rhyme now and then. Love doesn’t cost a thing just to remember when. An easier time has arrived to be who she is. Closing his eyes until he feels her again.

They deserved a better ending after such an epic tale, so she raised her white flag and began to set sail…

🧖🏼‍♀️✍🏻

self abandonment ~ self acceptance

Losing sight of that thing that made me smile. Forgetting what it feels like to laugh without explaining the punchline. Stopping to remember how the littlest of things brought a smile to my lips. Quitting on myself when everything I wanted out of life became out of my reach.

Defeated…

Ignoring the words that cut deep inside
my heart. Dismissing the aggressive passivity when actions hurt my flesh. Denying the truth when it flashed directly passed my eyes. Lying to myself when I said I wasn’t hurting.

Destruction…

Picking myself back up after the seventh time. Learning that I cannot love too much. Deciding to stop going back to something that remains broken. Choosing me over all else for the very first time.

Selfless…

Mattering more than anything
Being exceptional
Never being perfect
Being exactly who I am

Freedom…

🧖🏼‍♀️✍🏻

My head –> a big bag of weird

If this is the only day I have, this 24 hours to make choices, to live and to breathe, I think I better choose wisely because tomorrow I may be in a different place.

Today is my day to do what pleases just me. No one to answer to, no one to selflessly serve, no one to have expectations strictly placed on me. What a freedom to breathe, to feel and be still.

On the 3am hour I awoke, just opened an eye to see the clock. Lying there in the dark, I smelled the fresh air drifting in my open window. I heard the rustling of a critter in the crispy leaves below. There was an occasional car passing by the road down the drive. It made me wonder where they were off to, but only for a moment. Suddenly the hoot owl began talking to me too. I drew my attention back to the stillness, to the quiet, peaceful little haven I call mine. Inhaling easily, I relaxed into my freshly fluffed pillow. With the next exhalation I chose to rise and have coffee in my semi dark room and embrace this alone time.

My thinking was remaining in slow gear. This day belongs to me. I asked myself, how do I want to spend it? With another sip of my delicious hot cup of creamy caffeine, I began to think about my life, as I often do. I picked up my phone for a few minutes and scrolled mindlessly through social media for all of 2 minutes. What am I doing? This is never how I want to start my day and I was reminded of my recent, former life. It startled me going down that memory lane. I was reminded of the disconnect between us. His addiction to devices, that essentially was an accessory to the death of our relationship, or at least that was how the demise initially began.

As I allowed my thoughts to wander down that road, I could feel them in my whole body, the discomfort was ruffling while the anxiety tried to bubble up in my throat. Choices, I have them, use them wisely I told my inner being. I took those thoughts captive. I pushed them aside and proceeded to venture my mind down another path, remembering instantly where I was, right here and now, safe, in the presence of my own company, relaxed and breathing.

Taking my last sip I felt sleepy instead of awake. I think I’ll start my day over again. What a concept and, if want to, I can do this all day long. I’m only as happy as I make up my mind to be. (Abraham Lincoln) And with that, I shimmied down beneath my covers, feeling the cool air upon my face, I rolled over and closed my eyes. My mind floating off to a softness of memories. I hear my own voice talking to God, “it’s been awhile since I prayed about him. Won’t you please take the anger in my heart and make it more gentle? It’s only harming me.” Out loud in my noiseless room, I still hear the faint “who, who” from my feathered friend and I ask again why he hurt me, but no words came back to me, not even a small sense of relief, only more questions. This is not how I wish for my day to go. I began to write again while I took notice of my breath and I drifted off to sleep.

It’s a peculiar thing, the brain, how it can reach far back into the cave of darkness and still find the unwanted mess amongst the wet walls, dead lightbulbs and cobwebs. Who stores these things up so tightly and why? What purpose do they keep serving? I’ve convinced myself I need to remember so I won’t forget the wreckage that caused the defeating pain. Isn’t that how I learn my lessons? I’m beginning to doubt, yet here I am, keep on keeping on.

It’s in all the thinking, the clambering of thoughts wrestling around in my head that stirs up emotions from unresolved, unanswered questions, and so, I continue to ask and I continue to wait, maybe even hope for resolutions. Now the coffee kicks in as I stretch beneath my warm covers. A thought forms, the next part of my day emerges as a visual prop, get to the gym girl. Perhaps something revealing will shine down on me there. At least my focus will change with every rep and round…

🧖🏼‍♀️✍🏻

I just sat beside him there, in the dirt

Life altering changes, unexpected losses, the painful aftermath and the process, nothing anyone can truly prepare for, ever.

It was my freshman year in high school when my bio dad called mom to let her know his Gramma passed, one of the handful of times he made contact. It seemed odd to me as I’d nearly given up on this man. I don’t recall if I felt happy to hear from him indirectly or sad over the loss of my Great Gramma. Little Gramma, as they all so affectionately referred to her as, was the sweetest tiny lady I’d ever met. Although I had very few moments or memories with her, the ones I do were quaint, brief and loving. This would be the first funeral service of my life. I was nervous, didn’t know what to expect, but we went. This is the extent of my knowledge of that experience. Life was in session before and it continued on long after.

It stung…

The next sting that struck across my heart was my senior year when a close classmate was killed in a head on collision on her way to school. The somber silence that washed over the school that day was deafening as the news traveled quickly amongst our small student body. This was the first time I truly noticed people’s behavior surrounding death. Granted, we were all teens with different levels of empathy, compassion and even feelings, but to observe the bizarreness from those who were seemingly drawn to grieve over a lovely young girl whom some, just the day before, were less than polite to. How does a person muster up that sort of falsity and keep it going? Me on the other hand, felt that loss deeply. She and I had a short history as friends, 8th grade through most of that year, but a friend she definitely was. She taught me things about boys I couldn’t have heard from anyone else. She seemed genuinely sincere and experienced too. Our last encounter was indeed the day before in ceramics class. Elton John’s, “that’s why they call it the blues” came on the teacher’s radio and she boldly sang out as no one was listening. I’d admired this girl. She had confidence. She had courage. She had life in her and yet, she was gone now and I wept for her, her parents and myself. Her absence was noticed for quite some time. To this day I grin upwards when I hear “our” song.

It burned…

Four years later, I would get that dreaded phone call while I was at work. The one that came from the step monster on the other end telling me my mom was killed in a terrible car accident. The one where all I could do was stand there, listening to his words and not hearing what he was saying as I began to slump to the ground, holding the corded phone as the tears began to flood my eyes. This can’t be happening, she just called me yesterday to tell me she loved me and that she was leaving for the long drive down south. It was true though and all I could repeatedly ask him was, “was mom drinking… was she?” It took 2 mind numbing weeks between the autopsy, the coroner’s report, the police investigation and transferring “her”, my mom, who was no longer my mom, from the south to the north where she would be “laid to rest”. Nothing was real. My older brother and I stood in disbelief at her closed casket for what felt like an eternity until someone had us sit down. The next thing I knew we were watching them lower this beautiful, shiny pearl box into the ground. What the fuck was happening? My life was turned upside down in an instant and no one was comforting anyone. Everyone divided after that week and went about their own lives, separately mourning and grieving and not talking about any of it. Was this normal? Are we supposed to keep our sadness a secret? Feel, but don’t share? I went along life like a zombie for a year. I couldn’t understand anything.

Pain…

A year and half after mom’s death I would be getting married. I went through the motions up until the month before the wedding day when my Grampa passed away. I won’t have mom or Grampa at my wedding now? Fuck this. Grampa had been sick, but he was a trooper. He said if they tell him he needed anymore surgeries, he was going to say no. They did and he did. While I visited Grampa on what would be his last birthday, we had this beautiful exchange between us. Somehow he knew that he was saying goodbye to his little missy girl. I didn’t know it at the time, but I definitely paused before I left his side like I hadn’t before. I drank in his kindness that poured from his eyes. His love I felt bursting from his heart for me. My Grampa, my first protector and crush, my rock, my only true love of a man that loved me for me. He was gone.

I was empty…

It was homecoming night at my same high school. My sons were all in grammar school, ages 14, 11 and 9 when I got the call the next morning at 7am from a close friend. She didn’t want me to find out any other way. I had this special friendship with another parent from our kid’s elementary school. We were both going through tough times in our marriages and found comfort in talking to one another. As she spoke the words, I listened in disbelief, “…she was killed in a terrible accident late last night, I’m so sorry honey”. My heart sank. I didn’t know what to do. He lost his daughter. His light in his darkness. His precious, oldest child. I paced, do I call him, just go to him? What? I’d known tragic and sudden death, but I’d never faced someone who lost their child before. Finally, I couldn’t take it, I had to find him. I had my youngest in the car with me and as I drove around wondering where to look, it occurred to me where I would be. Down the twisting country road we went where earlier that morning I was told of the horrific accident. I saw him there, sitting on the side of the road, just off the edge a bit, picking weeds and staring at the big oak tree, the one that ultimately took her life. I parked the car and asked my son if he’d be ok to sit in the car for a bit. Of course mom. I approached him slowly and without saying a word, I just sat beside him there, in the dirt and we quietly cried.

Sometimes there’s nothing to say…

Gramma was placed in a luxurious senior care home years later after Grampa passed. It seemed premature to me, given her seemingly healthy self and the independent woman she still was, but her other daughter thought it would be best. It was the holidays and each of her 3 grandchildren took turns visiting her with their own kids that day. We went in shifts so not to overwhelm her. Gramma was thrilled to see us, all of us. Much later the brothers and I would share our experiences as we all said our goodbyes. I can recall something similar in her vacant eyes as with Grampa. She laid there on her bed, eyes closed, asking God to take her home to be with Daddy. That’s what she always called Grampa, “Daddy”. She was in a daze, but when she opened her eyes for a moment to say goodbye to the 5 of us, she looked at him and said, you take good care of our girl, won’t you? He smiled and nodded in agreement. It would be 4 weeks later that I got the call about Gramma’s passing. I cried so much it hurt. The boys, how was I going to tell the boys?! They adored their Great Gramma. I gathered my strength, held onto them and listened as they cried and asked questions. We got through it, together. I learned.

I grieved…

He was a young man all my sons knew from school. It hit my oldest the hardest. They were in the high school band together and he was a huge fan of my sons punk rock band. This young man was so full of life and love and he spread it all around. He had a tragic accident that took him instantly. Another dark cloud loomed over their young lives. Devastating to all who knew him. We all attended his service together, saying our final goodbyes to another young person. It hurt. We were all in shock. What a loving young man and now he was gone too.

Numbing…

Tragedy would strike us again the day we got that call. This time it was my brother sobbing on the other end of the line, “He’s gone sis, he’s gone.” I was in my car with my middle son and immediately pulled over bursting into tears, his oldest son, my nephew, their cousin and my oldest son’s best friend in the world. Cousins are our first best friend, if you’re blessed to have them. They were 6 months apart and inseparable since they could walk. His life cut short at 20 years old. As we entered the room where he was laid to rest for us to “visit” with him, it was the most painful time of their lives, the cousins who were missing one now, the father who tried to protect him from himself is without his first born son, the mother who carried this child and loved him more than her own, his existence was over and none of us could let him go. This beautiful child, gone. Nothing made sense. The agony.

Unbearable…

18 months later to the day, my youngest son was frantically texting me from school one morning. He finally called after his first class and I said, “honey, just leave and come home.” We lived across the street from school and I ran down the stairs to meet him on the street. When he saw me, he started running and crying out, “he’s dead, he’s dead” as tears steamed down his face. What? Who? Fuck!! “Mom, my best friend, he’s dead!” My heart broke as he cried and couldn’t speak, only sob. I stood there and held him as he melted. Shortly after, the gang began to rally around as they always did. They knew instinctively where to go, how to comfort and soothe one another. They huddled up and cried, they told the ones that weren’t there the devastating night before the truth of the events and how it was a stupid accident… they could barely contain themselves with their sadness, anger and shock. I hugged them all, told them I loved them and cried right there with them.

What the fuck? Enough already!!

She told me don’t judge people around death. No one can possibly know what’s in their heart, just tend to yours sweet child.

I always remember her words…

I’ve watched and noticed the varied ways of which this was true. Some close the valve to that part of their heart so they can’t feel as they once had because the pain is too great. Others vow to live for today and appreciate each moment, remembering to say I love you… until time fades those well intended promises and life resumes as it once was, back to status quo.

We try…

For me, my capacity to receive and pour out seems to have increased a little more with every experience, boosting my gratitude and granting more patience and tolerance for you, but especially for me. Before, I didn’t possess the ability to separate mom’s suffering from my own. I couldn’t see how much pain my nephew was in, only that he was lost. As for the other great ones, I’ll never know why your walk was shortened, but as I reflect now, I am able to slow down and remember with less pain and more joy what each of you brought to my life and how I may have enhanced yours. I appreciate each of you. I love you all. The biggest gift I am receiving through all these losses is the ability to discern my journey from yours. I am left here to be without your physical being, to mourn and grieve for your absence and the void I feel, but I keep your spirit alive every time I think of you. I catch my breath and smile when I feel your presence brush by.

God bless the broken hearted and empty spaces that no other can fill, but I will continue to celebrate each, irreplaceable you.
Let us embrace this one life.

Through tragedy, gratitude is gained
Through loss, fullness is obtained
Through voids, love is changed

🧖🏼‍♀️✍🏻

I miss you

There’s this thing I do when I feel afraid or alone and I can’t or won’t cope with what’s happening all around. I disappear. Not in the physical sense of the word, but into a place of secret hiding where I feel safe. It’s simplistic and calm, but especially it’s quiet. So quiet that I really can hear myself think and there isn’t anyone else there to rearrange those thoughts or disregard them. It’s just me and me.

I guess I started visiting this magical place when I was a young girl. I could walk along the cement pathway Grampa poured to connect my front door to theirs, walk through the front door and make myself at home. This became the space where I could just be. Where everything was in its place and everything had a place. You know, that sense of belonging? I was always welcome anytime I wanted. I knew I didn’t have to ask, but I did just to be polite. Once inside the only rule was, if Mama said no, just ask Gramma.

Their home was always a comfort of warmth, like a big cozy blanket I could cuddle up with. There were cookies in the Oreo cookie jar, usually sugar ones, but sometimes actual Oreos. The gum was double mint and waited for me on the second shelf of the pantry cupboard. Then my favorite and always just for me, was vanilla ice cream in the kitchen freezer with a backup in the deep freeze, with my own can of Hershey’s chocolate syrup waiting for me in the fridge. I’d grab my lap tray from behind the back porch door where it lived and settled in next to Grampa’s chair in the living room to watch whatever it was he had on tv. It didn’t matter to me, so long as I was next to him.

Some nights Gramma and I had our own special “shows” we liked to watch together and we’d spend time on the back porch laughing and having a snack together. Me with my ice cream and her with some popcorn and a pop. I cherished these times and often dreaded having to walk back across that long, cement pathway to the other house, but I got to keep this ritual until I was about 10 years old.

Midway through 5th grade, I was uprooted and moved clear to the other side of town. It may have well been in another state. Grampa couldn’t pour a path that big. My heart was crushed. My safe haven was out of my reach. This is when I learned to retreat inside of my own world where nothing bad could reach me or touch me. It became my new escape. My fantasy world.

I became a different girl when I’d visit there. That girl was fearless. She said what she wanted to say and sang at the top of her lungs. She was bold. She spoke words no one had heard leave her lips and she was loud enough to be heard. She was courageous. She tried things that frightened her out there, but in here, she conquered it all. She was confident. She walked with her head up high and carried herself tall and proud. She was fierce. She was strong. Then one day, she just slipped away. She didn’t know where she had gone or how to get back and she was alone.

Her safety net was shredded. Her life was unstable. She felt uncertain for the first time in this life and she stumbled and fell, forgetting how to get back up, she stayed down. Her light had begun to dim. Her tenacity had slipped through her fingertips. She was becoming invisible and slowly, she disappeared. Where had she gone? This bright light, exuberant young lady, with sparks in her eyes and fire in her soul, what happened to her she had asked, but she had no answer. She had become a shell of herself, the kind that’s kept upon a shelf.

Years passed by and she grew weaker in her heart that once was explosive with desire and hunger for love and for life. She evolved into some version of someone else to keep peace and harmony for others. She realized that the world told her she couldn’t, so she didn’t. She believed them when they struck her down, leveling her to their limitations of her. They put her in a box that they designed and there she would remain, unable to grow and be that little girl who once had everything in her possession.

Gramma and Grampa never knew of her disappearance or maybe they would’ve come looking for her. Rescuing her and brought her back to where she first knew of her capabilities, her worth and her sense of belonging. How she longed for the safety of her home with them. The smells of comfort of joy of connection of acceptance of love and that familiar sense of knowing where she belongs.

I miss her
she’s not gone
she just got lost…

🧖🏼‍♀️✍🏻

Deep thinker

He got it in his mind that women are to be more than submissive, but subservient and assuringly beneath him. The desperate need of his that they worship him as if he were a God. We are easily used, regularly dismissed and always ridiculed as if we possess no value or worth to dane to be in his presence without his permission. The perversity and depravity in that statement feels like a knife twisting in my heart as I groveled to be that worthy girl in his deemed place of honor.
Fuck that…

When I was 10, he showed me that same worthlessness and stole my youth with his control by devaluing me just as a professional manipulator behaves. I was being trained up to expect to be treated this way when I got older. The woman I was becoming didn’t matter and I deserved nothing more than what he gave and did for me or to me.
Fuck that…

He drilled it into my brain that my thoughts were insignificant, my needs were as well. No one wanted to hear about what I wanted or how I felt about anything at all. Being objectified began when I started to “develop” into that blossoming young teenager. How does a grown man become this way? I couldn’t think in terms such as this when I was a mere teen. From those days forward my attitude was only,
Fuck that…

I’ve learned to escape my body. To float up to the ceiling where I feel safely detached from whatever takes place in the moment happening below. I practice wading in the air as if I were swimming along a soothing stretch of the lake. From here I watch and wait and when everything begins to fade away and it’s safe to return to my body, I snuggle back in. Relieved once again, I can work to get myself to drift off to sleep where I can dream of a life that is calm and beautiful, free of the anxiety that wakes me most nights and even keeps me from that night’s sleep.
I pray for freedom…

After years of this way of existence, I’ve been coming back to my body, slowly allowing myself to feel things I never permitted myself to when it was a dangerous place to be. Never had I imagined the destruction of detaching from my very own self. It was all I knew. It’s what I practiced for survival. It’s what kept me going.
I prayed harder for freedom…

By retreating inside my own mind and hiding behind my fears of these monstrous sized men, I had developed a case of dissociation for my self protection. It became my only source of a coping mechanism that gave me the illusion of being bigger than those who were hell bent on creating my inferior self in order to feed their self created superior selves. When I could detach so completely from the situation, I became invincible as I checked out of the world for the terrifying moment I needed to escape from to be safe.
Freedom was what I craved…

The demons are as real as the dragons I battle. Maybe things will be better in another life, as if I have more than one. What am I doing, still and again? Why am intent to suffer so? I am on a treasure hunt to find the glory in my story.
It’s time…

There came a day when I awoke after a decent night’s sleep. One where anxiety didn’t shoot me out of bed and my skin. This same night I hadn’t dreamed of my body floating up to the street light that sent a glow on the picture below as I often do. Instead, I was lying there, the light trickling in, listening to the hummingbirds feeding outside my window as Mr. Squirrel was playing like a monkey jumping from branch to branch and Mr. Monty the Rooster began his morning wake up call and it occurred to me… today is the day I believe I became sick of trying to make sense out of nonsense, so I just stopped. I truly felt more free. Suddenly, smiling to myself, I was reminded of the fable…

“The Scorpion and the Frog”
A scorpion, which cannot swim, asks a frog to carry it across a river on the frog’s back. The frog hesitates, afraid of being stung by the scorpion, but the scorpion argues that if it did that, they would both drown. The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport the scorpion. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung him despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies: “I couldn’t help it, it’s in my nature”.

🧖🏼‍♀️✍🏻

Coming out of her deep, dark denial one piece at a time

“Nothing Left Inside”

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFd2kPQgImW/?igshid=r1sne7gq1o7c

Feeling like her skin has been peeled back as the sun bakes down on her exposed flesh. She is burning from stripping the layers of denial off, leaving her with the searing pain of the truth. She relives every detailed moment of each incident as if it were happening right here, right now. She tries to outrun them, but she can’t escape the memories. Her dreams hold her captive and startle her awake at times, bringing her anxiety back until she can awaken enough to remember where she is and that she is safe in her space. She bolts out of bed planting her feet on the ground, gasping for a breath, just one will do, but it takes many minutes to fully inhale and exhale.

They never understood their breakups, the discards, and this time, they don’t realize how the trauma has bonded her so tightly and why she cannot just break free. Neither does she, but fuck, she tries hard to sever it, all of it. Those ordinary people are living a common, vanilla, flavored life. She is tormented by the years of the secret lifestyle suppressed by his every move, his very nature, his discipline, corrections and punishments and now she will say it out loud… his abuse. Her body has been keeping score with faint marks still remaining upon her soft flesh while the flashbacks in her thoughts trigger her. Hyper vigilance has become part of her everyday life. Her mind kept tabs that were deeply engrained, creating new pathways that would continue far past their innumerable separations, including their last, their final.

Trauma bond—>
https://www.abuseandrelationships.org/Content/Survivors/trauma_bonding.html

In their world, she wasn’t initially picked out of a lineup for her soul to be crushed, but that was what took place over a slow, calculated period of time. She was carefully selected by him because of her strength and confidence she exhumed. She would make an excellent supply source. He was drawn to that. She would be his. His clay to mold, his property to own, his body to create and modify. He wanted what she had for his very own undoing. It all went into the choosing process. She would become a kept woman and that would require a complete breakdown of her human spirit she once possessed in order for him to transform her into the little pet toy he wanted her to be, the one he needed her to become.

She feels the tightening of the straps that hold her tightly and the strike of the cane upon her tearing, searing flesh. The stings ignite her fresh wounds, feeling as if they’re on fire. Another one follows and she thinks the last will never come, but then he tells her to count them down. Sobbing, she is finally allowed to drag her snot filled nose across the tear stained sheets, then abruptly everything just stops. There are no more sounds. His voice went quiet. Faint footsteps fading away is the only sound she hears over her own shallow, deep breathing.

The room went deadly quiet as he disappeared for a moment, emerging again with a bottle of soothing gel. At last he released the ties that bound her, literally, and she collapsed across the bed, shaking, trying to catch her breath, but all she knows is the relief of being free, for now. The hyperventilating subsided, but she can’t stop shivering. Then suddenly she feels him lying behind her, covering her with a warm blanket. He holds her tightly in his arms at last, her limp body whimpering in agony as he whispers softly in her ear, “good girl, suffering so beautifully for me. You know this makes you even better for me, right? That makes me so happy.” Her brain can’t engage or comprehend anything, only the warmth of him. She easily focuses on her broken, aching body and his words. The echoes of them run across her mind, jumbled and unclear, yet all she can do is sob and nod as he pulls her closer to him, stroking her hair, kissing her neck, “shhh, good girl.” Sleep now little one. Exhausted, she passes out.

She awakens what seemed like hours later. It was dark outside and everything was silent and eerie in the cold room where he tucked her in after, after… and then she remembered her punishment he had administered only an hour before. The sting was intense as she dragged herself up from the bed. She took her aching self down the hall where she knew she would find him, sitting at the computer, waiting for her arrival. “Hi baby girl, your’re awake”. Her eyes burning, her voice barely above a whisper, she nodded and he motioned for her to come closer. As she did, he pulled her to his lap, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her gently as he whispered his famous words, “it’s over, it’s done, it’s in the past”. She was quietly weeping and melted into him. This wasn’t the first time nor would it be the last…

His depravity haunts her still and she tries to outrun the affects, the visuals, the hauntings of what her life once was, but she always catches up and finds herself waiting there. Right where she left herself.
Fuck, You again?

She was his kept little girl, as he addressed her as, his. The reality was, she was a grown woman with severe daddy issues and the coercion he was inflicting upon her, the brainwashing and gas lighting had convinced her that all little girls receive this kind of “love and attention” when a daddy truly loves and desires them. She didn’t have a daddy of her own and she’d been abused for so long by her step monster, how could she possibly know any different? She believed him. She trusted him.

She’d lay there at night, a tear rolling down her cheek asking herself questions. Questions she didn’t have the answers for and he’d pull her close to him, whispering, “shh, sleep now baby girl. Everything’s alright.” but it never was.

Why did this please him so? Who was he? What was happening? How did she get to this place? Where had she gone? The amazing power of denial and the complete destruction of control. TPE a total mindfuck…

🧖🏼✍🏻

The jury’s out on you… hu-mans

🙊🙈🙉

When did I let cynicism invade my heart? When the emotional upheaval is in full force, does the bottom need to fall out or do I crawl up from the ashes? There’s a heaviness that accompanies heartache. My head and heart are in this non amicable long distance relationship where neither can agree upon things very often. My head can be like, “yeah, you Dbag, I’m done being hurt by you. I’m glad you’re gone. You did nothing more than suck me dry of everything from my soul, leaving my flesh raw, my heart shredded and my spirit trampled. So fuck you and fuck your… everything, asshole. You don’t want me? Fine, I’ll find someone who does”, screams my broken little girl from deep inside. Really I know I’m shouting out to my bio dad, where the core root of my hurts and hang ups live, but I have to start from my now and move my way backwards and you, present time folks, are the lucky recipients who will suffer my wrath.

I’m learning…

Then my soft, forgiving heart chimes in louder with empathy, “but he’s sick and damaged, we can love him through it, all of it, wait and see. Wait some more, keep being patient, he’ll see, his heart will engage with ours,” but it never does. “Be more for him, he needs more from you girl. I know he isn’t capable of being what you need, but it’ll be alright, stick with him, it’ll fall into place. I know it’s been years of accepting his small crumbs, but you can live off of those.” That’s the part of my bleeding heart that yearns to connect with that someone who will fill that void. I’m an empty vessel by now. One that’s been giving all and receiving very little in return. I have a God sized hole in my breaking heart that truly only God can fill, not another human and certainly not some man.


I’m learning…

It’s the unfinished business that stings the most. The loose ends if you will. The unspoken, unresolved, looming questions that desire and deserve to be answered to my satisfaction. I suppose this all began when my bio dad “left me” at the age of 2. His departure would later set the stage for my behavior in all my interactions with every male who walked into my life and then out again, leaving me to feel the sting of his absence all over again. I’ve asked him the questions and silence was on the other end of the answer as he turned and stayed away. We call this feeling, abandonment. The emotions that surround it can range from unworthy, unwanted, undesirable, unimportant, unloveable, discarded, disposable, dissatisfying, disobedient, disdain. I’ve experienced waves of all of these negative thoughts about myself. Of course, they would be reinforced for my lifetime by the partners chosen to bring me more of the same and the familiar. Like a magnet, I drew them in. I’ve created this habitual recognition.

I’m learning…

Abandonment has convinced me that, “everyone I love leaves”. As my bio dad was replaced one day by a narcissistic asshole to say the least, slowly over time, mom began abandoning me, emotionally. His hideous displays of abuse over her began spilling over onto me. I wished he would leave, but that was never granted. I was trapped, listening to the lies spouting from his vulgar mouth while I was getting crafty at sidestepping his creepy advances. I blamed her for not protecting me. I drew mentally closer to a dad who was gone. I chased after him for the love, attention and time I craved, but he never rescued me from the hell I was trying to survive. I didn’t blame him. I loved him. Needed him. I silently pleaded. I waited. I hoped. He proved me right about leaving.

I’m learning…

I’m such a copy cat and a fraud. I ignored the symptoms for years. In the beginning he lured me in with his sweet talk, his stories of feeling unloved by his own mother, the alcoholic abuse from his own father and the betrayals from his 2 significant relationships. Being the sought after empath I am, I bought every word. My heart cried for him and I would show him how lovable he is. He didn’t just need my understanding and support, he required it to breathe. Fuck. I wasn’t just repeating the same patterns I witnessed between mom and the step monster, I was living them and I was engaging in them, with him. It sickens me to have claimed “I would never live life like her!” and yet, there I was duplicating her life, abused, ridiculed, belittled, objectified and convinced I would never survive on my own as he discarded me like last night’s leftovers time over time.

Abandoned again.

I will heal.

You will always be a narcissist.

I’m learning…

🧖🏼‍♀️✍🏻