April 2018

So its almost April.  And April is sexual assault awareness month.  This year its a strange place for me really. I always try to post about the month means to me as I am a survivor. I want people to notice, to do things differently. I want people to notice me and just tell me they think about things differently, they are going to do things differently, they want to learn how they can help.   But I feel that most often it falls on deaf ears, I share, I hope and there is no response what so ever.  SO this month its just going to be for me.  TO heal my heart, to share with those who are able to support and understand.  This month I am going to try to figure out the feelings that I have in my heart and mind.  I am stuck between wanting to share, and wanting to stay silent because really the only difference is me.  I am not sure that any of my sharing makes a difference.  So maybe this year is a time to be quiet.  I am tired of reaching out and getting nothing back. Tired of sharing my heart and not a single thing  from anyone.  You see I know and understand that I get old, that the things I deal with get old.  I am aware of that but I don't feel that I am asking for too much.
  You see I would never want to be a pest or a burden.  All I want is a simple thinking of you, hoping you are good.  I hope that this month you are safe and taken care of.  I am holding space with you this month and always.  I have even asked for what I need acknowledgement, and was met with lectures about things that don't work for me.  SO this year this Sexual Assault Awareness Month, I will quietly work on my own heart. I can say with almost 100% certainty there will be no acknowledgement for me and maybe if I go into this month knowing these things it will be a little easier.  That does not mean that I will stop fighting, that fight is something in my bones, in my heart. I think I want others to understand and fight with me.

 Maybe this month it has to be an inside job because the outside has just been more than hurtful lately and I don't; can't; won't add any more hurt to this fragile heart of mine.  In this moment, in the 2 million 592 thousand seconds that are in this month I will process in silence, I will process here with my own thoughts where there is no input, no judgement just my thoughts, my fears, my feelings.  Maybe this month will be a time for reflection, what is next, what is lost, what can I do to make a difference.  I feel like I am always searching for that one thing and maybe that thing that I am searching for is somewhere in my own heart.  I have to stop looking outside for the acknowledgment, the support, the tribe that I have longed for , much of my life.  No safe place, no people, just that I know I will make it.  I know that I will keep moving forward and I will find the other side of this sad.

  I promise that I try more than hard not to difficult, not to be pesky.  SO this smile, I will smile, and move through all these seconds. Giving the things that I so need to others, and hoping that they are able to find the things that they long for , somewhere in that I hope the same will come to me.  Somehow , someday, someway.

I HEART YOUR HEART.

I fear that staying quiet goes against everything that I believe.  But I think this time its what is better for my own heart, my own healing.  Its just finding the right place, the right people the right moments.  Here is to finding those things . 

Al I have

When you make the right decision

The other day I reached out to Jason, the pastor from Mercy Church.  I am not sure what it is that I needed to hear.  I don't know, maybe reassurance that I am doing the right thing.  That I am not some awful person for standing up for myself.  You see I have for some time been standing up for myself standing in my own truth about church.  I understand that is some peoples hearts.  But it just isn't mine.  I have tried to belong, tried to believe tried to fit in and each time I am the one that gets lost and left out.  I have longed for that belonging that safe place and I think I find out, but I think I just want to find it so much that I see things that aren't there.  I have enough of that in my life, enough hurt that I am still healing my heart from so much unthinkable.  I can not add another thing that fails to keep my heart safe, that fails to be beside me exactly where I am.  If I have said it once I have said it a million times,  Church and god is not a journey that I can do on my own. I have tried over and over and I could not make it work on my own.  I have voiced that, I have asked for help, I have asked questions, I have asked for people to walk along side and be with me.  None of that has happened.  Sometimes it logistics, sometimes its just out of sight out of mind.  Sometimes it just takes to much time. Sometimes people see the adult woman that needs to get over it, stop dwelling, just get involved,  and not the scared little girl who had to watch her rapist receive communion on Sundays.  THEY DON"T SEE THAT.  When it comes to church I am stuck as that little girl who is hearing things about love and devotion and kindness,  and I am living everything the opposite.  That is a reality. I try to see it though my adult eyes, but there are things left to work through.  They talk about Father and unconditional love and you will never be alone; those are not things my heart understands, or come natural.    I get attached like a child, I grow then am left. Again would you leave a scared little girl when you get tired ?  That is what happens because I am not that little girl anymore   The things I have said that I fear the most in all cases; I get left.  I so know the time and effort that it takes to walk alongside me, I am sure there are pieces that I am not aware of that are huge.  But I do know what I need to thrive to be understood, to  be held up in the journey.  I will keep walking but I am sure I will need somewhere/someone often supporting the journey maybe even carrying me when my heart is just that heavy.  At this point I am not willing to  follow something on my own that I can not understand or be supported in.   I am expected to see others views on church on god, but my views are not respected in the process.

Jason was pretty awesome and from the first time I spoke with him he was every thing kind and good.  But he was also very busy.  When we met for coffee, he listened to my heart and knew how I just wanted to be heard.  That was more than amazing.  All the pieces were there,  but life gets busy.  People have their lives.  They see the adult woman not the scared little girl and I try to make that work, try to fit in.  And things got rough, that scared part wasn't seen.  So I pulled away, and I move further and further away.  And when I reached out to Jason the other day and learned he had left, that he resigned as the pastor,  my heart broke some.  My heart also became aware that leaving was the right choice for me before I got attached. I met amazing people there that I hope I will always connect with.  I stood in my truth and made the right choice for me.  That was refreshing.

So today I am learning to stand in my truth and do the things that work for my heart the things that fill me up. This morning I woke up to the hear the beautiful birds singing. That made my heart smile. The things that I can and do believe in with my whole heart.  For so long its like I am this awful person if I don't believe how others do and that just doesn't fit me.  I am the person that I am because of the life that I have lived.  For once , oh for once it feels really good to know that standing up for myself is a good thing. And I am not giving up by any means.  Just right now, I have to do what feels right for my heart.  And right now I can not and will not add anything that brings more shame and disappointment. I will always hold hope that someday, SOMEDAY I will find just what I am looking for. If you are going to church today be happy. If you are staying home be happy.  If you are making your heart happy.  YES do that.

I will do the work, I am a fighter I just need someone there beside me.   

I HEART YOUR HEART    

Yea, I am pretty sure its done

Yea, so many feeling that there are to convey and I think that they will fall on deaf ears.  They are unable to hear my story.Unable to see how their actions have affected others.  Unable to see the pain and unable to understand where exactly it is that I am coming from.  To say that well unless something else has happened that I don't know about, oh that's a comment dismissing anything that I feel.  That's a comment, that somehow I am supposed to prove the things that I am feelings the things that I have said.   That says to me I have no right to my feelings unless something else has happened, that is not in any world o.k.  I do not understand that to say to someone please just reach out and ask how I am that is what I need that means the most and then to ignore that and talk about the thing that is more than difficult for me, that is not ok. And that thing that I have feared sharing my true feelings for just this reason.  I am different, the thing that is being pushed is the thing that that I walk alone in and that I am not willing to do. I do not understand the things that have gone on. The things that have been said The things that have hurt my heart.  I believe there is truth in the things that I have said otherwise there would not be that defensive stance that hurts who I am.  It hurts more than anything when someone knows you so well and yet throws barbs like your most ungrateful and you know that is the farthest thing from the truth. When the hour and hours that they have given you is brought up, and you shrink in your shell because the guilt that I have felt for each and every one of those  hours is something that I can't even understand, that is weighed on my soul.  And it was always well if I can make that decision, if I didn't want to I wouldn't, well then why bring up those hours.  Every word sent was a plea for help for support for understand.  Just to have someone hear whats in your heart, that's all I wanted really.  I do no understand.  I have never fit in with those people and have said a million times I am not willing to walk in something on my own where I do not belong.  To be heard, I can not do this alone, over and over that was the message and no matter how hard you sh those words do not fit where I am.  That has been the feeling for so long and I have been more than sorry.  When things are already so heavy, there are times when fighting for something on your own becomes unbearable and I was in that place. I didn't want lecture I wanted an hear and compassion and understanding.  Maybe I never gave enough back, maybe t was a season I could go on guessing for days, years and I am not sure that there would bw any more answers than what I know right now. It's sad, and I don't know where to go from here.  My heart is breaking and I so want to hold on but the hurt, I am not sure that I can.

Known for some time, today was the icing on the cake

Where does a person even start when you have known for more than some time but there comes a point where you aren't heard or acknowledged and then that's it.  Did I change that much ?  Did they change ?  Not once did anyone ask me what happened, not once has anyone asked how I am.  I was seen as the mooch and she was seen as the hero and that is how things played out. And that is not ok. No one asked or cared that I had gotten a full time job. I was not meant to be a baby sitter, no one saw that side did they.  No one asked Anything at all. I have seen the writing on the wall , but I so wanted not to see it.  I have been left out and said its ok, and I always had a reason, ALWAYS.  I had been forgotten and said thats ok.  I was there with a kind word but my words were never the ones that mattered. Its amazing how one person knows nothing about them then creeps right in and pushes you out.  Some may say thats crazy, and thats ok but I see.  It's so strange to have such a safe place and for it to be gone so quickly and with out any thought.  They don't even see how she has crept right in and I am sure, she knew exactly what she was doing, she knew that they were my people.  I think it bothers me so much because I kind of see it like my father.  When someone hurts you so very much then are taken in, there is no rhyme or reason and that is part that hurts.  I don't know if this is forever, but I know that my heart is broken and that doesn't seem to bother anyone and there lies the problem.  I can not pretend to be fine, pretend that I still have a safe place.  And this is so new, it's been there for so long.  I do not know what is next.  I do not know if I will ever get back what I had.  Its enormously sad, and nothing like I have ever dealt with before.  For me its kind of like,  someone taking my father in and showing him such kindness and not asking any questions, just pretending that there is no damage.  I am not telling people what friends to have.  I am saying that its not ok when that person has hurt you so deeply and everyone pretends that it didn't happen and then I am the one left outside looking in.  That is the problem, because they were mine once.  They were my people, and I am not sure that they will ever understand and that is the pain that cuts like a knife.  

I will always heart your heart. 

Sticky Conversations that make me sad

 Yesterday was another one of those days when things come up, and you least expect it and it makes your heart hurt.  You want to share you want to explain and you can't. All you can get out is well my situation is different.  Yes so very different.  And my heart feels more than heavy. A conversation about dads and being a single mom.  There are so many things that I have in common.  And yet so many things that I can not even explain.  It's these situations that you realize, how different that some things are.  That as much as I fight them, as much as I am ok. As much as I am getting better where I am there are things that are going to hit me so hard, that it takes my breath away and leaves me in silence. Things that can't be spoken, things that are just too hard for some to understand.  And so I don't.  I listen to the conversation and my heart breaks.  Because I can and yet can't relate.  I can relate but can not share why.  I can't relate and can't share why.  These are the conversations that are hard, that blaringly point things out and make me want to curl up in a ball. 

And sometimes its even more than hard to explain when someone doesn't understand where you have come from.  They talk about being a singe parent and child support, and visitation, and their children wanting to meet their father and those are things that I do not understand.   Because for me there will never be visitation, there will never be child support.  Those are things that I will never have to understand and there is a part of me that is so very glad.  But the things that I do have to deal with are just so very big .  They are things that are not a casual conversation, that are not lightly taken that have major implications for my children and I.  To be a part of that conversation when I am included I would have to add things like well I was assaulted , so its very very different.  It's different for me and my kids.  I can't be a part of those conversations.  The feelings and thoughts that come with my experiences are dark and so very heavy. And there is just so much judgement in the things that have happened and how I view things.   

And then of coarse is the issue of dads.  And One of them said I always had my dad so I can't imagine how I would feel and again.  My heart hits the floor.  I had a monster who did nothing but destroy.  As she can't imagine life with out one, I dream of having a good one.  The damage that was done.  I can not even fathom having someone to protect me and keep me safe.  That is not even a thought.  I watch it, and I see it on TC but there are just so many questions that run in my head, and it hurts.  The things that they talk about I can not even imagine.  There are so many things that never make it to sound, light or feeling.  That gets hard, that is also reality. The hard reality that for me some things are just hard. Some things are just unimaginable e and viscous, and  I hold them in my heart.  I try to be a part but sometimes those unimaginable things  blare and there is nothing to do but let them be and move on.  People can't often understand where you have been how you have gotten there but you none the less are there and a part of the conversation.   

I heart your heart .