My dearest Loved ones, my friends:
Goodbye.
Please take the time to read this when I have finally gone to my final resting place.
No longer in tears, no longer in pain.
I have proudly lived my life in transparency to everyone. This was the greatest achievement in the life of this survivor, aside from the birth and lives of my precious 3 children. No lies, no secrets, just truth.
The fact that I was sexually abused as a small child was well known.
The fact that my mother knew about the continued abuse of my older abuser for the remaining years of my childhood, and encouraged his presence in our home at different times throughout my childhood, even at the age of 17, is not, however, a fact that's as well known. Nor is the emotional neglect and manipulation that I still endure this moment. Every moment...
Shhhhhhhh........
No longer, shall I retain my silence!
It was only a year ago that my own eyes and mind were blasted opened to countless traumatic experiences I've endured throughout my life, as well as the ongoing emotional abuse I endure as a direct result of my hyper-active participation in a relationship with the woman I have called mother for 37 years.
Tick, tock...
Tick, tock...
Tick...
On and on the time drags on slowly... motionless. Daily, I awake in tears, crying over the dreams of my children that haunted me at night, immersed in a fresh flood of thoughts and emotions from simply being awakened by another day of cursed breath in my lungs, and the constant, and harsh reminder that I will face, yet again, another day of activities and emotions with out the loves of my life, nor able to fulfill purpose for which I was born, as a mother.
I wipe my eyes, angrily brushing the wet salty tears from my face.
My body swells with resentment and anger of the reality that is now my life. I fill my lungs with air, and hold my breath, just long enough that I feel the burn begin in my air passages... I wish they'd just explode. and then slowly, I exhale. Long, and drawn out, giving me every possible moment to stretch myself into some form of relaxation.
I don't ever really relax. My mind never slows down! It's a constant race for which resolution could be possible and also the most effective communication application. I am constantly revising what to say and how to say it, because I fear that each and every word that is ever taken from my mouth again will be manipulated, abused, and exploited!
Oh! The anger that fuels this burning heart!!!!! I scream! Why! Why all my life has it always been this way???? Why does my mother hate me??? Why is she doing this to my children???? What does she want??? Money????? Why!?!?!?
Why did all those moments on my knees and pouring my heart and soul out through the pages and pages of bibles, devotional, and concordances lead me here??? Through these emotions, thoughts, and nightmares?
What is love, anyway? Is it real?
A figment of our imaginations?
Or something we were taught to believe in, like Santa Claus?
We know the feeling, don't we?
Oh of course we do! Everything that feels even slightly warm and fuzzy gets attributed to love! Love and goodness and God. Because, they travel in 3's...
I myself have experienced love.
Love of course is penetrating. Intoxicating. A drug.
I can't stop thinking that love is what a person is supposed to feel about and from their own mother.
Yet, the feelings I have toward the woman who conceived me are vile, hateful and vengeful and I can absolutely not stand the fact that although I must gasp for every, fucking breath as a result of her actions, she is the one who tucks them in at night, sends them to school in the mornings, and accompanies my son across the field on senior night, apparently.
How. Dare she.
I wrote a poem once.
Goes like this.
What would they think if they could enter my thoughts?
I'd share the truth but in reality? I'd rather not!
I hate the game that has to be played; Just be strong they always say...
A constant battle that is so real,
I'm sick of hiding the ways that I feel.
I want to run, I want to hide...but honestly? All I can think of is suicide.
I don't want to hurt, I don't want to feel. I want to wake up and find none of this real.
I hate whats been done, I hate what they do,
God, didn't you know the only hope I had was you?
I've trusted your story, believed all those lines,
About your love, mercy grace and sacrifice.
My life is in shambles, My heart is broken and torn...
Every day is a battle, I feel hatred contempt and scorn!
I try to be grateful for all that you do,
I know that each breath comes directly from you; You say that you love me and won't cause me pain, but lately all I feel is alone broken and battered,
abandoned,
abused. Is it all in vain?
I long for your help, Lord,
Like Joseph left to die alone in that well.
Instead of leaving him helpless, you rescued and blessed him so well!
I'm sure that my thoughts can send me to hell,
My faith is in you God, you know me so well.
If I don't have you Lord, I have nothing at all;
I'm asking you now God, please,
Please....
Don't let me continue to fall...
Sometimes these things I so long to share,
Miss manners would say, this is nothing to air!
I fight to hold on, I fight every day!
What's wrong? Why fight this battle? Just trust God they all say!
They minimize my pain and don't know my sorrow...
goodnight, go to sleep, there'll be new blessings tomorrow.
Another time, I wrote the following:
I used to think a lot about running.
Like, if I went far away, then no one would know what happened and then I'd be able to do it...
I just could never figure out a way to do it without hurting people I cared for.
Then, the tables flipped, and all I could think about was how to do it and make it so my mother would hurt in the worst way possible, for the rest of her life.
I've lived with the spirit of suicide since childhood, as long as I can remember. It has been a living. Hell. An ongoing nightmare from which I could ever wake up.
All I could think about was the in-deniability of the constant, never ending pain and heartache that kept cycling over. And over. And over. Always. It has been torture. Since birth I imagine.
I'm not the one who chose to keep going...
God chose that for me.
He showed me in my spirit that he would not allow me to die until his assigned time.
In this revelation, I realized I didn't want to have to live with the stigma and embarrassment of a failed suicide attempt. I didn't want to have to share a testimony of that kind of survival with my children and grandchildren. Through this, God showed me that deep inside the God shaped hole inside my heart and soul, I desire to live. Not survive... but truly live.
Some days, I open my eyes and think oh my God. Another. Fucking. Day. I'm still. Fucking. Breathing.
A deep sigh, each of those heartbreaking days, and I breathe out, okay God. If you want me to live, you're gonna have to make me. Because I don't have the strength, stamina, or interest in doing it on my own. And it is only by his grace, and through HIS power, that I am capable of living, every. Single. Day. One moment at a time... accepting hardship as a pathway to peace.
I should be dead. The very breath in my lungs, every single day, is absolutely and unquestionably Gods merciful miracle. Because No. I don't want to live another breath without holding my precious 3 children in my arms. Without being able to tell them I love them. Without the ability to watch them breathe... sleep... wake.... and grow.
I don't want to feel another second of this staggering pain in my chest when I inhale the bitter taste of betrayal brought to me by my own blood. People I trusted to love and protect me, no matter what!
Still, I breathe. I awake. Occasionally, I'm blessed with sleep. Regardless of my inner desire to stop feeling this excruciating pain, The Holy Spirit comes in like a flood, and gives me peace, and some kind of crazy, terrifying hope of a tomorrow that isn't wrought with torture and grief.
With this spirit driven peace, is joy. I constantly battle the fear of being disappointed with Gods answers and my reality each day. The what ifs cycle through my mind at a terrifying pace, nonstop. I must consciously, and intentionally rehearse scripture in my head, the truth of what I know to be real, regardless of the fact that every ounce of my flesh cries out in a horror film of emotions..
