realization – Page 2 – The Whole Cookie

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…

🧖🏼‍♀️✍🏻

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 was silent. 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 ties that bound me

She caught her breath, every time he spoke to her. Like a predator after his prey, he’d hover around for a few moments, closer he’d move near where she was before he made his way to exit the door. This became his dance he perfected over time. Toss a hook out and see if she’d bite. He set the stage and she was his clueless, leading actress. Innocent and demure, she wasn’t used to this sort of attention, not really. She deflected it at first. Falling back into her old style of safety, she tried to be invisible. Why was he paying any mind to her? She’s long since downplayed her outer beauty to match her painful insides. What could he want with her now, ordinary self she was portraying? She told her friend she wished he’d look at her, give her those enticing words, those stolen glances, that masculine energy that seemed to be pulling her into his vortex. Jokingly she said to her friend once again, come on… but instead she wanted to believe his words and so began what would be her misery of life.

She was so raw and vulnerable from her existence that was always in session and recently turned upside down, that some of the nuances were refreshing and pulling her in. It was as if he was attuned to her inner most thoughts, could smell her fear, was feeding off her sadness and was going to fix her. Like a lion ready to pounce, he set it up perfectly, calculating his every move. She never saw it coming.

But he was clever. He knew exactly when to throw her a bone and say the right things to make her trust and believe that he was interested in her, even cared about her well being. He gave her glimmers of hope. He showed her a man she had never known before. He quickly learned how to maneuver around her feelings and navigate the ways around her heart. He’d spout out promises and things to make her light up just to keep her on a leash. He was very smart when it came to manipulation, control and getting what he wanted, no matter the cost. Once he had her in his clutches, his plan to devour her whole was put into motion. The confusion invaded her so precisely as he anticipated it would, that she was oblivious to what was happening. It was so insidious and her life as she knew it was forever changing.

Her heart still races as she desperately tries to drift off to sleep, but instead her mind wants to retrace all her steps that she had walked into every trap. How blind she must’ve been to trust him as he dangled a piece of sweet nectar just slightly out reach, but low enough to keep her grasping for it over and over again. His savage, beastly desires drove him to those torturous, mind fuck games that only he had the rule book for.

He silently laughed as he watched her squirm for relief while she begged for an ounce of affection or a morsel of love. She tosses and turns as the nights turn into months. She feverishly works to reconcile in her own twisted mind, how such a human could exist and worse, keep her under his spell for so many years.

She writes another sad story of her victim role. The one of lies and deception where she was the star attraction and he, the daemonic villain. At last, exhaustion overtakes her and she passes out long enough to wake up and start the cruel cycle over again.

Determined to uncover the answers to questions she’ll never have, but that haunt her still. She searches for more clues, educating herself further, depriving herself of her basic needs. She has become a detective in her own murder case. The one where she is the missing person and the key suspect is at large, living as if, all the while, searching out his next unsuspecting victim for his endless need of fuel supply.

One day she’ll come out of the dense fog and will rise above it all. One day she’ll find the forgiveness to unshackle herself from her own death sentence. One day the sweet taste of freedom will replace the bitterness that swells up her throat. One day the obsession will dissipate and her breath will resume to its normal rhythm. One day this nightmare will come to an end and she will awaken to find herself returned safely to the ground where her feet have been replanted and there is beauty all around…

The pain’s gotta go somewhere

Time to begin again. As I think, my mind ventures down a path of beauty where the air is clean, the trees are whispering affirmations in my ears while the birds are seemingly in tune and chirp above the sounds that become loud inside my very soul. I write these words for the extraction of the pain. It is such an imperative step towards healing.

Notice, just notice, where do I feel that emotion in my body. Check in with my brain, is this new? A lie? A fact? A trigger? A flashback? Let’s sit with it for a moment. Explore its validity, destination and root. Remember those breathing techniques they taught you? Practice them now. Remind yourself you are safe, this isn’t happening right here or right now. Open your eyes girl. Wider. Take another breath. Release the toxins on the exhalation and inhale the sweetness of the aromas as they sweep across your face. View the beautiful sights of creation.

That is all you are ever intended to do as more has yet to be revealed. Keep walking. That next step belongs solely to you child. You may choose to look back to see how far you have come, but remember, it’s just a glance measuring your progress. Staring isn’t serving you anymore. Take your stride as slow as you need. No one is rushing you. The push is in your own mind. Time is measured by the hands on a clock and the days on a calendar. Oppression was your enemy that caused stagnation, complacency and even paralysis, all of which led to those feelings of unworthiness, self doubt and certainly fear. As we walk along this newly, still uncertain path, it is leading us to the freedom we’ve desired, to the truth that is gently nudging those feelings. They are not facts, so just let them come. Greet them like a sweet friend who reminds you that you are alive. Allow them to wash over you and fade as quickly as they came. Keep what belongs to you and release the rest. Breathe again and again and again until it becomes natural, yet again…

This is me, not a version of, a small fragment or even a shell, but who I’ve always been, authentically me. The former human I belonged to was not the first, nor the only man to dominate me, exercise power, exert control, overshadow, diminish my essence, cast painful words and cruel intentions directly into my personal being, but he will be the last. I have new beginnings and they are mine for the taking.

Thank you grand teachers for without whom, I would be a far different human than the one I have become. My empath journey has gone from believing I was living a bad dream that I couldn’t awaken from, to the reality that this life has been a journey of lifelong lessons, all of which has created my character. Bestowed upon me have been gifts and blessings for a deeper sense of self, compassion, empathy, clarity, peace, joy and above all else, love, for me.

Blame has no place in my house of flesh. Shame has been cast out as my voice becomes clear and a grander understanding that my words have always had value. Beliefs are mine to own, to embrace and to change. I welcome a hunger for knowledge without starvation and a thirst for information without dehydration. There will be no more lack, only abundance. From this day forward, it will begin with me, muther fucker…

(the pain has to go somewhere)

🧖🏼‍♀️✍🏻

God’s mercy is the only explanation

He silenced her with his anger. Afraid to speak another word as a quick slap struck across her face. She sat there in disbelief, what was happening? Then, as he drew his hand back, he followed it with a stern, “get the fuck out”. Without hesitation, she swiftly rose to her feet and speaking not a word. In her mind she asked God, “is this it Lord?” and in that instant, she knew, she would never return to him again.

Her mind was racing after the appalling scene that occurred only moments before. It took her over two hours to mindlessly gather her belongings in the dark of the night. She was replaying the events of the day that led up to his finale of the evening. What had gone so wrong so fast? She kept hitting the rewind button yet nothing was explaining to her why she was packing up 8 1/2 years of her life in a whirlwind like a death sentence she just received. “Get the fuck out” kept flashing over head and made her move more swiftly.

Probably to his dismay and surprise, she wasn’t becoming enraged as her typical, dissociative behavior had surfaced in the past. This was much different then all the times before, more surreal. She had a calmness about her as she loaded bag after bag in her car. The moon was shining brightly on that warm summer’s night, but there was an icy energy exhuming all around, causing her brief moments of panic.

She saw him sitting quietly on the back deck where they spent so many days and nights together, but also to her, alone. Silently, she walked out to join him, grabbing her chair to sit beside him in hopes he had changed his mind, would apologize for his rash behavior and say he loves her. Instead he arose, saying not a word and went back inside. She sat there a little longer gazing out into the darkness without any words, saying goodbye to it all.

She was a little numb now and feeling hopeless. She herself entered the back door, her heart pleaded silently within her own pounding chest. “Tell me to stay. Make this all go away.” His words never came. Sitting down at the dining table expecting him to join her there now to…who knows what? Explain himself, have a conversation, anything, something, but he never did. Instead he approached her with only one question, “got everything?” She nodded and quickly stood to her feet, walking slowly to the door where he was already 3 steps ahead, waiting and she asked her final question fearing the answer, “this is what you want?” Forever in her heart she will always remember the last thing he ever said to her, “I can’t get what I want”. And with that, she didn’t act on the rage that was boiling inside of her. In fact, she used that energy to channel her ability to walk away and know this was everything he would ever give to her and that was nothing at all.

There was a kind of numbness and peacefulness washing over her when she got behind the wheel to drive a mile down the road to the cottage she never could understand why he insisted on her maintaining as a part time residence, until now.

They’ve done this dance too many times to remember now, but he kept count and blamed her for every infraction and incident. Each time just like the time before, he knew, or rather expected her to come back, pleading, crying, begging even groveling to take her in his arms and love her once again. The ties that bound them were unbreakable. She had convinced herself of this and that being alone without him was unbearable, but for a split second, she inhaled what she thought may have tasted a bit like… freedom? And, for the very first time that night, there in the darkness, she began to exhale and she smiled.

She pulled into the not so familiar driveway, got what she needed from her car for the night, unlocked the door and walked into the dark and seemingly lonely place. It felt empty and strange, or maybe that was just her projecting. She began to come down from the adrenaline rush that kept her going for the last 4 hours. She found the bed, right where she left it. The girl, who just earlier that day, had a life that was tortuously familiar with a man she had loved and respected for so very long and now, she felt very displaced climbing into her empty bed. She was ready to drop by this point as a tear streamed down her face she thought, what the fuck just happened?

🧖🏼‍♀️✍🏻

Welcome to my emotional roller coaster ~middle, end, beginning~

“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”

Or a little this way and a lot that way, but still I’d like to go back there and kick my own ass for all those things I understand to do differently now, but instead I will learn, I will share and I will grow. Life can be an emotional roller coaster, mine certainly has been, but I persevere. I invite you to experience my journey as I write from the depths of my heart. Please, take what you like and leave, or sell, the rest.

Ever get fed up from the sound of your own voice? Get sick and tired of camping out in misery, the woe is me, pitiful state of being? I have. It was 2 days after Christmas 2019 and a long time friend had sent me the intro to the latest book she received as a gift. I had been inflicted with the flu on Christmas Day, was stuck in bed and was feeling so lonely and as I read it, my heart lifted. I asked her what the title was and as I saw those 4 words, girl, wash your face, I looked up and smiled. Ok God, Your 3^rd message for this book. I felt His strong nudge and ordered it on audible. Seemed fitting to be read to since the flu bug I was battling didn’t allow me the energy to actually read. This young, inspiring author spoke truth right into my heart. So much of what she talked about resonated. As she went on to tell her story I thought to myself, its time girl, get started on your own book and blog.

I give myself permission to glance back at my journey so long as I don’t stare. Eyes forward is the goal. The continuing of forever reflecting is serving no other purpose but to remain stuck. Am I merely justifying my lot in life of that claimed stake of a crappy hand dealt? Pity parties are not on the agenda, I know better, but movement feels paralyzing at times. After all, this has been my life. If I don’t keep it alive, who will? There is a time to talk and then there is a time to heal and that time is now. I have told the little girl inside me that all will be well, especially us. Secrets that once kept us safe are ours to reveal and share for our healthy healing process.

The drive behind writing this at all is to save my soul and preserve my sanity and it all comes together right here. I did the whole camping out thing in trying to figure out what happened to me over those 8 ½ years. I began to make myself nearly as crazy as the life I had been participating in, or rather was drawn into so insidiously. It had consumed me. I was gone, but to where?

to be continued…

The tormented mind of an abused woman

https://instagram.com/x.human._x_err0r.x?igshid=1eevm9xa8rivg

She sits alone with her thoughts, trying to figure out how she got here, to this dark and lonely place inside her haunted soul. Often wondering if she somehow deserved to be isolated, belittled, humiliated, beaten down and destroyed.

She has found herself unable to sleep again even though it has been 13 months since he pushed her out the door, no explanation or hesitation, yet he still manages to inflict the pain and torment just a little bit and then a little bit more.

As she stood between the door, where her confusing life had been for so long, and the empty darkness of the night, she asked him, “is this really what you want?” And with just 6 little words from his mouth, “I can’t get what I want”, she was banished once again, but this time for eternity. Now for the remainder of her days, she will consider all the possibilities of her wrongness, because after all, she’s spent her life believing the lies she’s been told of her value and worth. So easily discarded like a worn out little toy that no longer would serve any purpose, to him. She laid there with crushing thoughts, could they all be wrong about her, even him?

Little do they know of her true capabilities. She secretly dares them to underestimate her. She is always up for a good round of torture me and see. After all, they were her best teachers of that plot twist game and now she knows how to win. Watch the little men squirm this time as they now have to figure out the rules to this unsolvable mystery, the one he started, but the one she will finally win and end.

When did she become so secretive and clever? Why had she and how did she? By being their rag doll for all of those years. She paid close attention, took notes and now it would be their, his turn to stand and watch in awe of them, her braveness as they, she fiercely regains their, her control and power, the mighty gift they, she so frequently and freely gave away.

I do get to be dramatic today. It soothes and even comforts us, me to express and perhaps embellish a tad, but definitely to expose the truth of the matters. The affects of his, yours and their provocative ways upon my heart, stealing my essence as they desolated our, my soul without our, my permission.

Being devoted to an abuser is seemingly backwards, convoluted and plain sick to the average onlooker and we, I never cared much what you thought, only what he did. Your caring, concerned, compassionate expressions and even the occasional pleas for our, my safety were always going to be dismissed because our, my trauma bond was stronger than your love for us, me. Even the innumerable discarding of us, me throughout the years would all eventually lead us, me right back to his familiarity of destruction. It’s what we, I knew and kept us, me feeling safe, in those ravaging arms. Denial is a powerful mechanism all on its own. Don’t try to convince us, me otherwise. You just don’t understand loyalty, perverse as it may seem. It is what we, I know.

Fearful to leave, terrified to stay, his position of power lures us, me in as the continuance of this mind fuck game he plays engulfs us, me. Who’s the insane one? Really, we’d, I’d love to know.

Eventually we, I caught on to the insidiousness of this lifestyle he claimed as Master of the castle. It’s a ploy architected by the deceitful hands molding his sought after clay of prey. Once captured, he begins to create an image in his depraved mind. All the dimensions of which his new toy will begin to transform into started there.

First, he begins with our, my mind before moving onto our, my form. Rejecting little things at first, pretending to care just a bit, to make us, me trust him and then ashamed enough to get to work on these now, serious flaws that this hideous mind and body have become, in his opinion. In order to obtain the position of his queen in said castle, you, I must know your, my place. Then and only then can you earn it, but have no illusions little pet, you will never be fully kept in his elusive place of honor. You see love, there is no room for merely one queen next to this lord’s thrown. In fact, there’s no room for any solitary girl in his world, only the king of his own mind.

And so the story goes on, ashes to ashes he buries them, me alive. Alone might be better, one day, some day, not today…

🧖🏼‍♀️✍🏻 photo/art credit 📸 👆🏼