Truth

So they say the truth will set you free right?!? So the truth is I am more than shitty.

This month is April; its sexual assault awareness month,its my birthday, my children's birthday and I am supposed to speak and be heard and make a difference, be strong. I need to make others understand. I want to be that kind voice telling people it's ok, it gets better, there is some purpose, some reason for all the pain. And I just can't , I can't do that this year.

Tonight my counselor told me that he is going to start charging me. That he is getting more clients and that basically I keep getting put on the back burner, because I come second to paying patients. That is a sword in my heart. I told him in the very beginning that was a huge fear for me, it has happened before. I don't have the money for the counseling that I need to deal with the things that have happened in my life. And oh I understand he has to make a living, I UNDERSTAND that with my whole heart, it doesn't make it hurt any less.

I know,  oh how I know but my heart is absolutely broken. AGAIN.

I had to pull over on the way home, I couldn't see the road I was crying so hard. I am at a loss, a complete loss. And I came home and cancelled my appointment next Wednesday why prolong the enevitable…..

So this blog post will be brutally honest, I may swear, so please excuse me now, sometimes those are the only words that fit, this is exactly where I am this is my broken heart.

This month I turn 40 and it sucks. Not because of the number but because of so many other things. Because I am not proud of where I am. Because I am more than ashamed actually, and its really tough. Things should be different. Things should be very different. I shouldn't be on food stamps to feed my children. I shouldn't be under someone elses' roof. I shouldn't be an aide in a classroom. I should have my own house, I should be in my own classroom. I shouldn't have to break my children's heart explaining why they don't have a dad. I shouldn't have nightmares ALL THE TIME! I should be able to take a peaceful cleansing shower and I can't. I should have someone to help me understand church and god and how that affects me. I am so very tired always worrying about others feelings, when I feel like I am drowning. And I am pissed I know its felt like that for a long time, and it shouldn't but right now it does. I can't even tell you how sorry that I am. It was storming on the way home, and I looked up and there was this beautiful blue sky, and I got more than angry. I was beyond words furious, and words and sounds came from my soul that I have never heard.

The sun was shining in front of me, the dark clouds behind me and I was screaming maybe at god, maybe at myself maybe at the entire season that I am in. Where's the fucking rainbow, please where is the fucking rainbow? There should be a rainbow, I need a rainbow and where is it!!!! I am so done with this season,I just don't understand. I am working as hard as I can!  I pulled myself together, made it the rest of the way home, well a few more miles and again: the sky was just beautiful and I screamed again, this time directly at God, What the fuck, Why, I don't understand…….I don't understand at all. You can make this beautiful amazing sky, and I just need someone to stay for a little while no I need someone to stay period.   I need a constant all the time, not going anywhere person And I screamed and screamed and screamed. And cried and cried and cried.

This place that I am in is scary and hard and overwhelming and I just don't understand. I am going to be 40 years old, and I should not be living in someone elses' house, being a burden, I should have a real job in my own classroom to be able to support myself and my children. I shouldn't need counseling anymore, but I do.

I am not ungrateful for the things that I have been given these past few years, I am more than grateful, ABSOLUTELY more than GRATEFUL. And with all those things that I am grateful for all the greatness that has been in my life these last few years, it’s the pain and sadness that is so very deep, that doesn't go away.

This is when I realize, all those things that happened to me as I was growing up still affect me in so many many ways. The old thoughts , the memories, growing up in the house that I did, the way that I did. It wasn't fair, it wasn't right and it sucks, and I am fighting don't get me wrong, but I am angry. I am really angry.

I am not giving up but I would love to crawl in a hole in a fade away. I am working so hard and I feel like it doesn't matter. I am tired of being a burden. taking up someones space, being on the back burner, seriously, this girl needs something.

I am getting ready to go to DC and do a documentary and , and its like wow all the things that I am going through, if things were handled so very differently back then things would be different for me today. It's about fighting , but not fighting myself anymore but fighting back against the things that shouldn't have happened. Standing up for the things that should be, and that is easier said than done for myself. I will never stop fighting for others. This April its different. I am just going to try and breathe.  Keep my head above water. In this storm, this month I want others to be aware of the things that people like me face and believe me if it were as easy as flipping a light switch  every single survivor would;it is just not that easy.  I am asking that this April be aware of your own attitudes and beliefs.  And every thought that you have about how we should get "OVER" things we have had a million more than that and we are really truly trying, I promise.  

 

I heart your heart.

So how am I ??

Yea that is a pretty good question. And one that I don't have a clue how to answer. My counselor has cancelled the last two weeks in a row and I am not even thinking about checking to see if he will be able to see me this week because I am scared that he won't. I reached out needing some positive, wanting someone to understand and was asked if I was thinking about others feelings, when that's all I think about is other peoples feelings. I am not sure that there are truly people on my side lately. Even today there is some women's luncheon at church, and I said well maybe and she said I want to meet new people, and looked at me and was like well I know you don't. And I laugh and I don't say a word but part of me is crushed. It's not that I don't want to meet women it's that I don't have anything in common, I am not proud of where I am right now. What do I say oh I am an almost 40 year old sexual abuse survivor going to be doing a documentary that has graduated college but is working as an aid in a classroom living on food stamps and living in someone else's house!?! And oh yea I am really struggling with the whole God thing, there is so much too understand. And oh yea I am a single mom, with twins and please don't ask me where their father is, that's a whole can of worms you just don't want to know!! Yea what in the world am I supposed to share and contribute! Please tell me, I am dying for people to be in my life and I don't seem to have the best luck, not many want to stick around. And what exactly am I supposed to share with people?

Right now I am not sure that I am up for letting anyone in, and being hurt. I know it's a fact of life, needing people, sometimes being hurt; but right now there is nothing left of me to risk, and that has to be understood, or I guess that it doesn't. It is just exactly where I am.

I think that I have understood lately that I kind of do want easy. I always say I don't want things handed to me on a silver platter, I still absolutely expect to work hard really hard for the things that I want but a little easy YES, please. I have had a pretty shitty life up to a few years ago, and I am tired and I want some easy. Because yes, it often feels like I am drowning, ad yes it's been that way for some time. And yes, I am soooo very sorry.

I am more than thankful for the blessings that I have been given this past two years. And when things get rough in no way am I doubting or am not grateful for the things I have been given that isn't it at all. Its just that I am tired, more than tired I am exhausted and I want others to check on me, see how I am, I want others to hear me, acknowledge that I am there, and not just when they need something.

I am working so very hard and trying to do it all, and I am a pulled rubber band, that is warring very thin. And I have said no I am not doing ok, I am exhausted and overwhelmed and still nothing. So what does a person do? You keep going and keep your fingers crossed for a little easy.

I heart your heart.

Maybe this time

 My entire life people have pretended that everything was fine, we were all one happy family.  I can remember being maybe 5 or 6 and taking my father to the airport and on the way home saying to my mom "I wish that it was just the three of us and she patted my leg and said but we are a family.  And I felt so small and sank in the front seat of our car, yes we were a family, but to me my family was a nightmare.  We have never ever talked about things, she has never asked, and she sees me and pretends that everything is ok. Only nothing is ok, and very far from it. I am drowning.  My heart hurts, a lot of the time and I smile, try to make it better even pretend that I am fine but I am not.  Because very few people have heard me and really listened.  If some of the people that are around today were around when I was young, things would be different but they were not and my life was very different. I was left to fend for myself, and did the best that I could, some days that wasn't enough. Some days it still isn't.

I am working out the details of getting to travel to DC in May and tell my story, which is more than amazing and totally terrifying.  If you know me at all you know that I just want to fade in, I don't like attention, I don't like to be noticed, and yet I am going to share my story and am going to make a difference and am going to keep speaking until people start doing things different. I want to be acknowledged and I want my story to make a difference to change things, to change attitudes.  Until we are not ignored, until we are acknowledged and heard. I truly feel like this is going to make a difference to people and beyond that; this means so very much to me.  This is truly going to be a new beginning.   This is something I am doing for my own heart,my own soul something that I need to do, something that is pulling on my heart, something that I want to do. Sometimes I hide behind my blog, hide behind my smile,hide behind the dishes, the fixing of the pillows and I am overwhelmed and exhausted. This is going to be the most real true honest thing I have done in a very long time. I am going to be heard.  I am going to be seen. And I will not be quiet.

I have asked my children not to say anything to people exspecially my mother and Vincent did just that yesterday, and it broke my heart.  He doesn't undestand the implication he doesn't understand the pain and the hurt that runs so deep.  He didn't seem to care, he was in one of his moods and was talking to hear himself talk.  I was really upset, I don't want her to know I don't want her to be a part.  Maybe the fear of her hating me even more is more than real. And I asked him if he told her what it was about?  I have only told them its about when I went through the court system with Bob.  And his comment was "well I know that Bob sexually assaulted you, Right?  I said yes and turned away and melted he just kept talking.  My heart is breaking, those words coming out of  his mouth, those words that he doesn't undrstand that cut me like a knife, I was devastated. Ths is one I am alone in, there is no manuel for this.

No one saw me growing up, no one noticed, no one helped, no one stood up for me, no one did a thing. Often today its the same thing, though I am not that five year old anymore, thank goodness. I am a close to 40 year old woman that should be doing things differently, and I am desperatley trying. Only that four year old, that 10 year old that 13 year old is screaming, dying still waiting to be acknowledged.  She is waiting  for the world to stop and acknowledge the pain that she endured, which is a task even I can't or don't often do . It hurts to much, and I fear implosion of my heart. I was left on my own to take care of everything.  I can remember thinking I just wanted the world to slow down and acknowledge what had happned to me, how I was changed,  how I was hurt how I would never be the same again, and yet the world keeps going. Doing this, this time I am not on my own, and this is going to be life changing, I am hoping that I will see myself different, see myself in a different light, a courageous brave light; see that the things I have done that  have made a diffeence.  This time I am hoping that if even for a few days the world slows down so I can acknowledge what needs to be acknowledged and I  can feel heard.  Maybe acknowledge that little girl that went through so much, that is drowning today maybe just maybe I can save her. Maybe just maybe I can save me.

I heart your heart.

Always left out

You know I really don't understand this. I have been brave and asked a few people what is wrong with me, why am I the one always left out ? What is it about me?  I get responses like well everyone likes you, people light up when they talk about you, people think nothing but good things about you. Well that's fabulous but words and actions don't match and its painful.  I completely understand part of it is me, I know that I isolate, I know I don't make it easy, people don't see me; I am always left out. I am not included I am not asked, and even Super Bowl Sunday I invited myself somewhere, that is how incredibly desperate that I am. And all I can say is that it hurts my heart.  I am tired of people coming in then leaving, because I am spent if you don't plan on staying then don't bother coming in at all because I can't do this anymore.  I do not have people in my everyday, people that are there that care to listen that understand that hold my hand, I don't have that and I don't know what to do.  I am so sad, my heart hurts and I don't have people. I just have to keep going keep it all together because that is what I have always done.  I ask , tell people whats going on and still nothing and I am sorry that I am not the fun friend, sorry that I can't share in the same things that you do. I can't share those things because I don't have a clue, my life has been different, different in so many ways.  Someday someway I just  do not want to be  left out, and ignored and  have others pretend that I don't exist.  Sorry that I may need more, sorry that at times I am fragile but I give back all that I have, and that is sill not enough.  People say that people are not meant to be alone, maybe some of us are.  Maybe I am one of them.  I try and try to explain it to people; try and try to understand but its not happening and I don't have words anymore. I just need someone.

 

 

 

I just really wish that I knew what was wrong with me, there must be something terribly wrong or I would be seen I would be acknowledged and I would matter.

I heat your heart

     

Church

Church is very difficult.  I know that it is more than the building, its more than the people; its a lot more; it's a lot more than I can even understand but I am trying.  And I am struggling.  I have gained friends because of church, I have lost lots of people in the  church.  I have lost even more because I ask too many questions, and don't fit into their little box.  I don't follow the "in" women that everyone loves.  And the one group that I did belong to on face book, I took myself out of the group. I just couldn't do it.  Don't tell me how you want to help others, reach others when there is someone in front of you begging to understand and yet you look the other way.  I can not be a part of that.

I struggle to believe in god, I mean I do, I truly do. Things have happened that don't  have any other explanation at all.  SO do I believe in God, YES, well I really really want to and its really really hard.  I do enjoy the church that I go too.  I love going to service, I really do get a lot out of it but still there is something missing ?

Is it something in me?  Something with the church, I just do not know,and its more than frustrating.  I want it to make sense, I want to belong there, I want it to work and I am just not sure. I have more doubt that you could imagine, and about as little faith as a person could possibly have.

I did grow up in the church but it never meant anything to me. All I saw were people who said one thing and did something else. People that were hurtful and judgemental and mean. Some of the worst people I ever met were all part of the church.  I can promise you there was a lot of damage done in the church that I grew up in, which lead to many hurt souls.  And I don't know where to go from here.  I have gone from no church, to everything perfect for me church to fighting my way back to anything church.

We all know I am different, I see things different, I experience things different, plain and simple I am different and I need a different kind of church.  A church that doesn't want to put me in a box, a church that does things different.  A church that knows I am different but accepts me anyway. I am not at all about the traditional church, I need something else. I need a church that can reach those people those kind of people like me.

People are saying the right things; something is missing. I feel like I make people nervous nervous. There is a connection that I crave, that I am just not finding. I serve in the children's ministry which I love, its truly perfect.  But I also feel like the pastor doesn't quite know what to do with me, and I don't quite know how to tell him either.  I don't want to make him uncomfortable but the normal answers that might work for others just don't work for me.  I am desperately trying to get him to understand, but I fear it's not working.  And I am getting further and further away.

I am trying to figure out what I want what I need and I am coming up with even more questions and not many answers.  I need something different, I crave something that I haven't quite found yet. I need a place that will reach for me, yes that is what I am looking for.  Even on my darkest days they will reach, and I can hold on. 

I heart your heart.

I am not a JOKE

I am not a joke.  I know and completely understand that some even maybe all of my fears may seem completely crazy to you.  Whether you understand them or not they are real to me and need to be respected.  I see how crazy they are, I know and I don't need you laughing making a  joke thinking its funny because it is not.  It is MY FEAR and no matter how irrational that it may seem to you, its real for me VERY real. Those fears have come from very real unthinkable things. For that to be a joke hurts.  Fear is in no way funny, and my fears because you don't understand them; doesn't make them any less real for me.

I would love to not care if people understood or not; but I do care. I care so very much.  People do and say things all the time that hurt to my bones, people assume things and I am the one hurt in the process.  I know sometimes I should speak up, but why bother when you know that who ever is on the other side isn't going to understand?  Really?!? There is no point, there just isn't. I am not saying I want people to walk on egg shells that is not at all the case. I just want to be respected, I want people to think about their words and actions.  My heart is fragile not china shop fragile, but still fragile. My heart needs tender loving care and great understnding that is all.  I fear it may alway be like that,and if a person can't understand that, then I just don't know what  to say.   

I heart your heart.

Please, Please Be Gentle and Kind with Mine

Time to take the blindfold off

 

Oh my goodness, this is more than hard. As much as I write about the things that have happened to me trying to figure the rest out, there are pieces that are missing. Pieces that I desperately try to ignore, pieces that I don't talk about and the problem is they are all pieces of me and until I put all the pieces together, things will be just as they are. Talking about pieces is kind of perfect; I am one huge giant walking puzzle. And my edges are basically put together. On the outside, I am a mom and do all the things that an adult has to do. I take a shower, go to work, clean, take out the trash. On the inside where all the other puzzle pieces are they are backwards forwards upside down and everywhere in between. From the outside I smile and help the little's that I can but inside, well not sure that there are any words. But I am trying to put the pieces together with a blindfold on, and we all know how that will turn out. I keep the blindfold on trying to keep my heart safe, keep it protected, keep it from any further damage, but really it's only making things worse. I have some of the corners together of my puzzle, some of the outlying parts figured out, but those most hurtful, terrifying pieces, the blinders are on and I keep feeling for them knowing I have to work on them to heal, but I push them away. Like I keep reaching but the pieces move further away and my arms get shorter, and I get stuck, trying to understand, why I can't feel them. I can't feel them because for those pieces I still have the blinders on. I am trying to guard my heart, but I am trying to guard my heart from that little five year old girl who has already survived the worst, it's me now that I am worried about. I have to take the blinders off and hold that hurt heart.

I have more pieces together of my puzzle that I ever have, but there are some big sections that I am missing, and those are the ones that I have to start working on and in order to do that, I have to take the blinders off and trust that I won't implode in this process.

I think another piece of this for me is having someone who will walk with me, as I try to do this. As much as I dread needing others, it's just a fact that I do. I can not do this on my own, I have tried, tried really hard and I can't.

Wednesday Eric watched Pursuit of Truth with me and I cried. And crying has been really hard lately, for me , I know and I am a crier!!!! For so many reasons, I let go and I cried. I cried real tears that hurt. He asked if he could sit next to me on the couch. That itself is huge. I often do not sit close to others, I don't want to impose, get to close to bother anyone, and I don't want to be in any ones space. He was the one, who asked, and always my reaction is OF COURSE and I am always grateful. I need someone caring enough to sit close to me and not think I am terrible, it's been a long time, since James and I need that so much. Just to know I am not so awful means morethan you can even imagine. Eric would stop the movie asked what I thought, shared how he saw things. He gets mad at the things that have happened, sees how unfair it all is and I feel heard and understood. Then he stopped it, one girl had her father supporting her, standing up for her...sitting right beside her, she had him to lean on. That is wonderful, I am so happy she has that. The difference is for me I was on my own. I faced the courtroom alone, and everything that entire two year process alone.  There wasn't anybody there for me, I was completely on my own and the tears started and it was that ugly cry. The tears wouldn't stop. And it was for me that I didn't have that going through the court system, but as I move into this next chapter I do have Eric sitting beside me, walking through this with me and I am grateful. Valerie and Neil are giving me the chance of a lifetime to share my story and let people know what it was like for me. I am believed, I am valued, and I am listened to and heard. And I have to trust that it's going to be ok to take the blinders off, to feel whatever it is that I feel and that my story is going to be told and know that the people that matter are listening.

I am being heard.

I heart your heart