Friday’s meeting…

Friday’s meeting went really well. It is nice to talk with someone who seems to be pretty savvy and who understands what is going on in the world. I felt safe and accepted and (at least some degree) understood.

I found it interesting that I was on pins and needles for the two weeks leading up to it, but when the day actually came, I was very calm. Not sure why. I trust Creator in all things and maybe He was giving me His peace about it. I don’t know.

Like many things in life I have stepped into in faith, I have no idea what is going to happen. No idea where this will take me. I do know that even the little bit of sharing I did was helpful. Knowing I have someone to debrief my life with is helpful. It takes some of the pressure off.

What is healing…

I am not really sure what healing looks like. I think it is different for each person. After years of looking at it, I still don’t have a solid definition, but I can share with you some things that sure look like healing for me.

Healing Is

Healing is being able to laugh…even in the midst of pain.

Healing is being able to cry…even when others are around.

Healing is being able to somewhat identify what I am feeling,
and hopefully…even being able to have an idea of WHY I am feeling it.

Healing is knowing when I need to decompress,
being able to identify safe places to decompress,
and then…doing it.

Healing is being able to sense whether a person or place is safe
And then being able to keep myself safe.

Healing is being able to find joy in life.

Healing is being able to see good things…even when bad things are happening.

Healing is being able to have gratitude for what I do have
rather than bemoaning what I don’t.

Healing is being able to be productive in some way every day
even if I am the only one who recognizes it.

Healing is being able to take a step forward,
no matter how tiny
and even if it is only in my heart.

Healing is being able to face some aspect of my past…without completely crumbling.

Healing is being able to recognize that some part of my history,
no matter how small or big,
no longer has a hold on me.

Healing is being able to make plans…and know that they might actually happen!

Healing is being able to say that I made it through
another minute,
another day,
another hour,
another week,
another month,
another year,
another anniversary,
another flashback,
another body memory,

Healing is having the freedom to fully unleash my creativity and
sing again,
play music again,
write again,
talk again,
share again.

Healing is being able to give without manipulation
and receive without manipulation
even more importantly… recognizing the difference.

Healing is being to allow myself to truly love
and open myself to the potential for heartache without fear,
knowing that I can rise above anything that happens.

Healing is allowing myself to trust others
and being trustworthy myself.

Healing is giving myself permission to live life to the fullest
without thinking much about healing or hurting or my history.
It is allowing myself to temporarily “forget” that I even have an abusive history.

Healing is knowing that I was a victim who dared to survive
and am now a survivor who dares to thrive.

Healing is being able to put words to my experiences,
words like
“rape”
and “sexual abuse”
and “incest”
and “satanic ritual abuse”.
And healing is to put them without capital letters because
I am bigger and taller and stronger than they are
and I refuse to give them capital letter power in my life.

Healing is being able to cry and know that I am OK
and everything will be alright.

Healing is being able to see my Creator’s love for me
even when I know I don’t deserve it.

Healing is being able to see His hand in my life…even during the most awful of experiences.

Healing is being able to see His protection and how He got me through.

I may think of more things to add to that list. As I do, I may edit

Now I can go to bed…

4050 Confusion

4060 Mind Meld

For more art, got to my Survivor’s Healing Art blog…link in the right sidebar.

It’s Time…to Write…

I need to write. It is time…perhaps even past time. I am fighting tears right now and, I must confess, not doing a very good job of it.

Maybe it is the time of year. Maybe it has to do with my parents (I know there is anger under the surface with that one). Maybe it is what feels like a tenuousness in my living situation (even though I am seeing Yahweh do amazing things). Maybe it is being in contact with a cousin (mother’s side) for the first time in many, many years (we never lived close so I have only met her a few times). Maybe it is my expectation of what may be to come…system wise…when we do finally move into the house (which will be unfinished inside). Maybe it is my age and/or the way this living situation has taken its toll on my health. Maybe it is something I don’t even know about…something that is buried deep inside and whirling around.

I see things I want to do…but cannot. My situation and time, along with my state of emotional/mental health holds me back. I want to contribute in ways that I am simply unable to. I want to keep up with my online friends…and cannot. And all of these things are OK…I know (in my head) that they are. But I struggle in my heart. My online friends…in all of their various places…mean a lot to me. They are a form of support that is precious to me. Yet…as beautiful and precious as they are…they are not enough. They, too, are human and facing challenges of their own. They are not able to always be available…which leads me to the next thing I need to write about.

There is something that has been happening in my spirit over a long time. But lately, well, the only way I know to describe it is that it is almost like a surge. It is as if my heart connection with Yahweh has surged forward. I have been facing some challenges…which I have really tried my best to deal with. Those challenges…like challenges often do…have pushed me toward Him even more. I need His wisdom and His guidance, but mostly…I need to rest in His love.

It seems that my faith gets stretched and my spiritual maturity grows through that. And then it seems like I hit the wall. I am utterly helpless and I find it necessary to fall back upon the childlike aspect of my faith. Yeshua said that we should trust like children do. And so that is what I do…I just fall into His love and trust Him for the things I simply cannot do…or even see.

So I rest in Him, trusting Him and drawing even closer to Him. The strength, maturity and depth from the stretching I went through settles in while He is preparing me for the next stretching session. I stretch. I grow. I rest. Stretch. Grow. Rest. A cycle that is as old as time and yet very much in the present and will continue to be right there in the midst of my future. One long strand tying past to present to future.

There are things in that “maybe” paragraph that I think I need to write about…but I think I will separate them out into different posts.

My Sister

My sister had a brave heart. She was beautiful and childlike. She was a fighter who would not give up. She was trapped…caught in an unseen web that was too sticky for her to break free from. They had her where they wanted her.

My sister ran away from one cult family right into the arms of another…but she didn’t know. Neither of us did. At that time, we were both amnesic to our true history.

I wonder…did she ever figure it out before she died? Did she finally remember her childhood abuse…the younger years? Did she remember “everything”…or just the minor “stuff” she used as an excuse to run away?

My sister kept trying…in recovery and out of it. I remember her telling me how she had to fight with the recovery people to get her a counselor. She kept saying she needed one, but they did not want to give it to her…not even in those fancy, high class, expensive recovery places.

Was it because it was being paid for by his parents? After all…counseling might mean that she would remember something…something important…something damning…about them. Maybe she would finally wake up to the truth about her boyfriend and his parents…the family she lived with. Or…maybe she wanted a counselor because she already had an inkling of the truth? I will never know in this life.

This is the time of year that I especially think of my sister…as her birthday approaches in a couple of days. And I wonder about her death…and sometimes, I wonder if she even really died…or if they have her holed up somewhere. It didn’t look like her. And my father would not leave me alone with her. If he had…what would I have done? I don’t know. We weren’t supposed to touch the body…but I think I would have. It did NOT look like her. I had seen her within the last year.

My father said it did, but he had not seen her in years…so far as I know. But then…it is not exactly like I came from a truthful family. Ha! “Family”. What is THAT supposed to be? Not the caricature I grew up with.

It’s funny how everything seemed to be so good…on the outside looking in. All the memories I concocted about growing up seemed so OK…yet I was so not OK.  Stories my mother told me were woven through my mind with photos from the family albums. Childhood. Sure…that was my childhood…only…it wasn’t.

I remember the day I suddenly realized that it was all a lie…a fantasy. It has been so long now that I cannot remember if it was before or after I realized that I could not remember growing up with my sister. It is as if she did not exist…yet I know for fact she was there…in the same house with me.

So many things are buried in the mists of amnesia with a tiny flash of a snippet here and there that blazes through so fast that I can barely figure out what just went by. Yet…those flashes ARE there. And I do have the photographs. My sister was there. Some of the photos I took…yet, I can barely see anything beyond the photos themselves. Whatever I see is more like a surreal picture in my mind.

She died on my birthday. At least…I am told she died. I saw what was supposed to be her body…but it sometimes haunts me to this day. I know she was becoming “inconvenient”. I would not put it past them to agree behind closed doors while pretending to hate each other to me. Two families…warring for her body. It was sick. It was insane. It was my sister.

I will never get the chance to get to know her. Her living…except for the few times in the later years when I finally did meet up with her…is buried deep within. What I do remember makes me wonder if I really want to remember the rest. I don’t know. Maybe I should just create a life with her just like I created a life of my own? No…I want to honor her by remembering the truth…if I can.

Wordle

Paul at Mind Parts wrote a post about Wordle..  I have been checking it out.

I LOVE Wordle. There is so much you can do with it. Thank you, Paul!

I have found that you can use CTR Z to go back through the ones you have created and CTL Y to go forward again.

These are a couple of the 30 I did using a word list I came up with a few years ago when I was processing an experience I had. I tried different variations of the same theme.

The purple is how I felt in the beginning. Then came the black ones, which left me with red ones, which represent my heart leaking all over the place. I was crushed and betrayed.

Losses and Grieving

The last few weeks I have been doing some grieving. I am not sure that I even recognized it consciously as that. The last week and a half, however, it has reached such a level that I can no longer deny that it is grief.

It has been slowly building and it now feels as if it is coming to a head. Or perhaps I should write that it IS at a head. My heart feels strained and the last few days have been ones of wanting to cry…a lot.

I am grieving for friends who are going through health struggles, grieving for losses in friendships, grieving for losses in things I was hoping I could do, grieving for those I love who have been hurt and betrayed by those they (and I) love, grieving over incidents past and present, etc. The list just goes on.

Sometimes, it is really hard to know what to do with all the grief. It seems like it is just one more thing on top of another. I cannot handle it all. I have to give it to the One who can…my heavenly Abba. He is helping me to get my priorities straight…and to know what to hang onto and what to let go of. He is helping me to learn how to grieve…in a healthy way.

I always struggle with letting some things out…especially anger. I am angry over some of the things that are causing me grief. This is especially the case when the things that have happened are senseless…when there is no reason they should have happened other than someone was being heartless or insensitive. Then again, how many times have I been insensitive? If I want others to be forgiving of me, I must be forgiving of them.

Sometimes, though, things happen simply out of meanness or selfishness. Those are harder for me to deal with…and, ironically, harder to express anger over. I feel so helpless sometimes when I see what happens to others…and to me…and I feel helpless to do a darn thing about it. I think helplessness, perhaps, makes me feel the angriest.

I feel so powerless to do anything to change anything. People are hurt. They even die…and I can do nothing to make it any better. That is what it feels like anyway.

I think I am rambling here, so I am going to bring this post to a close.

Processing – What Is Next?

This guy being gone is having an effect on me. I had told my therapist that I did not think I would really be able to totally process what happened until we moved away. Or at least until my friend no longer worked there. The last thing I expected was for this guy to no longer be there.

Now I find myself thinking of his office. I can see him sitting across from his desk…asking me questions and taking notes. I can hear him challenging me to tell him everything and not hold anything back…as if I was hiding something. I remember him telling me that “they” had been upfront and trusted me…which actually was a lie…and now I should trust them and tell them everything. What was I supposed to tell them? There was nothing to tell. There was nothing in my background, or in my present, that posed any kind of threat to the group.

He said that something had come up in my background check relating to a cult…but he did not tell me what. He was actually “fishing”, I realized later. Dummy me, I acknowledged it without first finding out for sure just what it was he heard. I had wondered if something would show up. Now…I don’t think it did. I think what he got was hearsay from someone else in the group that my friend had talked to. But there is no way to know for sure now.

He actually did not even have the complete background check back yet…which was a big no no on their part. They were not supposed to hire me without that coming back first. Another reason I think it came from within is because he kept asking me what employees I had told there about my background. He kept insisting I had talked to some of them.

Now, I find myself flashing on him and his office and the whole incident. I find the emotions coming up and I am rather weepy. Although, with several other things that have happened this week…maybe it is everything all rolled together. I don’t really know.

It is going to be interesting to see how this turns out…for the group…and for me, personally.

Recent Struggles

I have not been writing here much and I have different things running through my mind and heart. My insurance company was one and I have written about that.

Now I am just sort of running the different thoughts and feelings I am experiencing lately out of my mind and onto this “paper”…sort of like a journal. I am “processing”, I guess you could say.

It has been really hard to get up lately. I am not sure why that is. I believe I am experiencing some minor depression. It has been hard to work things out for what I need in t without having a car. No car is effecting me in different areas of my life and this is definitely one of them. If I had transportation, I could get to t earlier which would make it a lot easier to get double sessions. Even if I cannot get the insurance company to co-operate, if I have to, I can go every other week for doubles so that they get their “once a week” number equivalency. No car means I have to go later in the day when I can get a ride. That also means less availability of my t since everyone wants evening after work sessions.

So, I don’t know, maybe it is all contributing to my finding it harder to get up. And it is not just the time change. Although I do believe that is contributing now, this started before the time change. I have a major new commitment in my life that I am really grateful for, however, it is also very draining. I have to really work things out carefully to be able to keep it up.

Life is challenging. My living situation (which I do not want to get into) is challenging. But I know that Yahweh will help me out. He will help me to get through life…all aspects of it…just as He has been doing for so long, even before I knew His name!