I M Perfect lady

Category: WIND

  • Awareness of Your Unconsciousness

    "I don't address Ellen as a victim or "survivor" but as a subject. She is the subject of her own unconsciousness, and, as a subject, she knows where to lead me, and she can become responsible for the havoc and suffering and choices of her own unconscious life. Even as a child, when she's eleven, this process of listening to the unconscious and becoming responsible can begin. From my point of view she is responsible for not telling, which doesn't mean she's to blame."  Annie G. Rogers

    A lot is being said in these few sentences.  

    Changing the words and veiwpoints from being a victim or survivor of abuse to being the Subject of your own Unconsciousness is not only huge, but accurate.

    It is about exploring the deep inner workings of how you live the way you live.  

    You are the subject that you are exploring and learning about, NOT the abuse.  You can't get free of being unconsciously moved about, unless and until you can see it. See it and understand the whys.

    By hiding from yourself, you are in the dark about so many things.  And yet, your actions are showing.  

    Somehow we believe that if we do not go deeply into our histories and delve into the actions of our parents, we will escape.  But in fact it is the opposite. You are held prisoner of your past when you fail to see it.

    The words victim and survivor didn't explain me as much as an explorer of my unconsciousness.  I had to know how I was able to live a life clueless of my abuse…for 46 years.

    I had to dig up what was going on in my childhood, the lay of the land, and to see who was doing what to whom and what was the response, in order to see how I grew to be the way I was.

    Just the fact, that I could live for 46 years unaware of my abuse, shows that I was unconscious of the truth of my own life.

    Knowing this startling fact, was where I began my search to know about me.  In learning about me, I was also learning about my family.  I wasn't created in a vacuum.

    I was born into a play that was already going.  I had to learn the language of my parents home.  

    In reading Annie G. Roger's book, "Unsayable"…I clearly was guided sublimibly.

    In order to keep their play going, I had my part.  It wasn't about my life, but theirs.

    Their play is still running, even after a few of us left the stage, the players are still maintaining the lead roles as accurate, even if the truth disputes it.

    In order for me to go back into the family, I would have to become unconscious again, which is impossible.  For once you know, you can't not know.

    Listening to my unconsciousness is what guided me to find me.  First I found me mental and broken, and could clearly see how I had to be in order to keep their story going. And once I seen how my behaviors were for them and for hiding abuse, I was then able to make new choices.

    I also love how she says, "she is responsible for not telling, which doesn't mean she's to blame."

    What is so confusing, is that if we tell, we are then accused of breaking apart a family and if we don't tell, we are then blamed for hiding abuse.  Which of the two evils do you want to pick?  Neither are the truth.  Yet somehow society has the person who has experienced the abuse, as the one who is responsible.

    Never is the abuser blamed for either.  When in fact he/she holds the responsiblity of doing both.  

    Tearing a family apart happens when the abuse occurrs…and it is for their personal benefit to keep it hidden.  It is their unconsciousness being exposed.

    If we all can start the language and conversations about exploring our unconsciousness, we can begin to find answers to abusive behaviors.  

    Abuse is our unconsciousness speaking to us. When we turn our backs or hide, or if we deny it, it doesn't go away.  It will continue to run and spread.

    My father's uncosncioussness was telling a story in his actions.  Those who refused to believe what he was saying, allowed him to speak it again.  If, the courts of the land understood this.  They would put him away so his truth didn't hurt another…and begin the process of having him explore his own life to reconcile his own childhood truths.

    There is only one way abuse can stop its cycle, and that is by awareness of your unconsciousness.




  • Care to Know.

    I finished Annie G. Roger's Book, "The Unsayable" and I found it had tons of information packed into it in a wildly compact messy way…not unlike how abuse feels in the body.  How she is trying to show clearly that which isn't clear.

    It is very complex and hidden…how it begins, how it is disguised and how it repeats and appears behind the facade of illusion we create.

    I believe we, as humans, would like to put abuse into a tiny package and keep it separated and isolated; so it not drip into our own lives. We would like to see it as only the issue of the perperator…that evil exists out there, and not see the strains within our own lives.  To see that our lives are weaved by those who came before us…all their unresolved issues, become our DNA.

    What I learned most from this book, is that way abuse flows from generation to generation.  How it appears and how it is overlooked, due to the blindness of what abuse is or how to read the language of the unsayable.  And even more importantly, how we continue to look outward and blame others for our own language…and how we don't pay attention to the signals and signs of our unconsciousness…screaming to gain our attention.  

    I do know that it takes great courage to go inward. Especially where abuse is.  You have to see where it came and how it grew you.

    I find her work remarkable in its accuracy and how it seems to settle her clients when they are being seen in their true natures. Even as Annie helps to show them their unsayable language it makes sense. 

    Highly remarkable, and not an easy read.  But, then so are we who have been abused.  

    Annie's closing remarks.

    "I've written this book with the hope of making some concepts clear to any reader, but especially to people who have clinical practices and those who come to us to trust us with their suffering. And, in the end, there are at least three things to glean from this book." 

    The first of these is that in America we've watered down and neutralized Freud's concept of the unconscious to such a degree that we no longer know how to listen as he listened. What's taken its place is a practice that in fact closes down the unconscious and its great gifts to us. We diagnose, medicate, remove symptoms, change cognitions, change behavior, and understand relationships, and yet we ignore the unconscious—its otherness—because we're frightened of it and have no access to it in the way we practice. I hope my efforts here awaken an interest in Freud, the original, daring Freud, and his idea of the unconscious.  

    The second idea is close to the first: The unconscious insists, repeats, and practically breaks down the door, to be heard. The only way to hear it, to invite it into the room, is to stop imposing something over it—mostly in the form of your own ideas—and instead listen for the unsayable, which is everywhere, in speech, in enactments, in dreams, and in the body. And the third idea is the simplest and requires the most courage: to befriend your own unconscious—its signifiers, symptoms, and quirky logic—or it will play havoc in the work you do with patients, no matter your intentions, no matter your degrees and qualifications."  Annie

    While she is writing this for her fellow therapists, I would like to encourage others who have been abused to read this.  It will make you feel normal in how you came to be, having lived unseen.  And how it was impossible for you to speak, when there was no one there capable to hear.

    She clearly shows how untreated incidents of abuse manifest in our lives. How the trauma doesn't go away, it is in plain view for all to read and hear…if they are willing.

    What she clearly shows as well as the deafness of the parents, how they too are contributing factors in our having to make a second hidden language…which appears not so hidden, if you care to know.



     

  • Welcomed there!

    Each new beginning comes with growing pains and a new perspective, as well as knowing what to focus on and what to let go.

    The first meeting of the WIND was beautiful, and yet when it was over, we tossed around who the focus would be on and how they would be defined. 

    A victim group? 

    A survivor group?

    What was the direction of the WIND?

    I am quite certain this isn't an issue in most groups that are formed, for they are formed around a mutual interest…and it is pretty narrow, EVEN if the individuals in it are varied.  The focus is the action, NOT the make up of the women involved.

    The WIND on the other hand, seems to be flipped around, due to the fact that I, a victim of abuse, a survivor of abuse…who wants to give back by starting this group… The focus is on who will attend, NOT what we will do.

    The twist is, if you advertise as a victim's group or one for survivors it will kill the group before it starts.

    What hit me like a tidal wave tonight, was that the very thing people are pushed back and away from are the labels I was given as a child.  Victim of abuse.

    It feels like I am wrong, due to a wrong that was done to me…when we have to hide those words.  For shame…that they are not attractive.

    Once again, I am on the outside trying to make it pretty….when in actuality it isn't me.  I can't make incest, rape and sexual assault pretty and inviting.  I can't.

    And nor do I want to.  

    I want it to be uncomfortable. BUT, I don't want me to be uncomfortable.

    I want victims to feel that the words don't make them bad, that by speaking out and using them in the correct context, you can get out behind them and stand tall proud of who you are…even if you happened to have experienced abuse.

    The fight that I feel pushed up against is to USE the words and to change the perspective.  

    For up until now, victim and survivors of abuse are seen as less than. No one one wants to OPENLY associate with them.

    In the past 7 years I have had many people contact me in secret, and some who will silently endorse me.  

    But, now I guess, I am asking to openly support and stand with women who are victims of abuse.  Come and join me, a victim and a survivor and help others become proud of who they are and that they are not the experience. They are not the rape…and incest etc.  Let us mentor them back to feeling who they are beyond the shame of abuse.

    It took me a while to understand that by not using the words victims and survivors, I was disowning a huge part of my truth.

    I, who exemplify a victim, can't speak it?  I will not use the V word?  Really?

    It can't be.

    I want there to be a movement that will right this wrong.

    Victims are not the ones who are wrong.

    They have had a wrong done to them.

    I want victims to be able to live loud.

    To say the unsayable…that abuse is wrong, not them.

    I truly do not believe that we can fool anyone that the WIND is 'just a women's' group.

    And why should we.

    Victims have spent centuries being seen as the villans.  While the abusers live large, we hide behind what was done to us.

    If I can't be the example of being a women who had the experience of abuse and how it affected me and then what I did to get out from beneath it…who will?

    There are no victim groups out there now that are being headed by a victim.  One who has walked 7 years of gaining back my sense of self…who can help steer them along the way.

    But, I can't do this if I can't say what my group is about.

    It is my belief, that we are all victims of something.  We all have barriers and walls that hold us back.  

    WIND is there to help you reach beyond…to push and encourage you to be authentic, and truthful in accepting all of you.

    How can I do that IF I hide the victim parts of me?

    I want my victim parts to be the stepping stone that has brought me to who I am today.  And it has.

    I would not be the person I am today, had I not walked the past 7 years out of dysfunction.

    I can't take the victim out of me, but I can no longer let myself be defined by what happend to me.

    There is no part of me that I am ashamed of.

    I will stand in WIND as me!

    All of me.

    No parts will not be welcomed there!
    IMG_9821






  • Harness the WIND!

    We had some very young inspiring energy at the WIND last night, they came in with my friend…as a reminder of the free spirits within us all.


    IMG_8504
    Seeing an open window display in need of human expression, they jumped right in and took up a pose! 


    IMG_8500
    Each moment we are on the Stage of Life, what is your pose?


    This is a rock that Teddy painted for me.


    IMG_8497

    And here it is with the Artist, Teddy!


    IMG_8496
    Both beautiful works of ART!

    And here is another rock, a gift from Laura Z.


    IMG_8505
    I love them both!  

    All the extras added spice to an already wonderful night.  Good energy and great inspiration!  Women in new directions….feeling the eagerness to try new things with the courage and freedom of the youth!  Escaping the confines of rules and all the things women have to do each day….to come together and play!  

    In our play, we will find all the things we love to do!  What we have forgotten to express, the spontaneity of life.  I looked up the word spontaneity and found, "Voluntary or Undetermined Action"  a great definition for WIND!

    The uncontrolled open space for us to be…is my intention.  Where you come and play voluntary without a definition of what our actions need to be.  Play can't be defined or put into a box….nor can you harness the WIND!

     

  • We All Get to Play!

    And so the WIND began… 


    IMG_8491
    It was perfect.  

    Inspiration, words, images, ideas, women, conversation, creativity, connection, visions, self, expressions, friends….


    IMG_8494
    In comfortable ease, we cut, we glued, we read, we searched, we found, we pasted, we listened, we talked, we dreamed, we shared.  


    IMG_8499

    We were all students of the Collage.  And collages we made!
    IMG_8493
    Dreams, goals, ideas, wishes, desires.

    Sharing our selves with each other in Art…it was comfortable fun.

     

    This one is mine, before I glued it down.  It was fun.  I will add to it as I now read magazines.  Looking for the one right word, the sentence that catches you, the place that you long for, the idea that nags to be done….IMG_8487

    The WIND was exactly as I had envisioned and more.  It was ease and like great Art, moved without effort.  What I love is that we all get to play!

    Next meeting is September 4th at 6pm.  We will be painting with pastels! 

  • Organically Like Art.

    Tonight is the first meeting of WIND.  I am excited.  I have no idea how this will go, where it will bring us, but my intentions are for it to be a mentoring women's group, with lots of action.  

    Due to my own background and speaking out about Abuse, leads some to think it will be the typical support group for victims. But, it will actually be my greatest intention to make it a complete opposite.  

    I envision a very active and inspired bunch!

    I see us as a group of women of all ages and in different parts on this journey called life…meeting and doing new and different things.  Expanding and growing and reaching towards exciting personal goals.  Defining our selves from the inside out!

    It matters not where you are, where you came from, but it does matter that you are eager to move in a new direction.  To wiggle free from what is holding you back…and we will cheer each other on as we stretch into new areas.

    You can come and play twice a month with us…it is a play date for women!

    Who knows where the WIND will take you!

    This is my latest quilt design, one that I am using my hand-dyed fabric.  I love the way the dyed fabric adds art to art.  I can't know how this will end, but I love the beginning!  

    IMG_8477

    This is how I see the WIND moving…organically like Art.  

    IMG_8484

    I can't know what this piece will look like, but I am fully excited about its beginning. Just as my feelings about the WIND!

  • Unsayable is in the Art!

    In the past few days, I have gotten to see the actions of abuse in the language of actions, even if the words were silent.  Now, I am reading another book by Annie G. Rogers, "The Unsayable- The hidden Language of Trauma".  

    What is totally connecting to me is the way we as humans speak, either in action and words, and actually how actions are much clearer and more accurate than the spoken word.

    To walk the talk isn't that easy, when our bodies and unconscious knowing are not that easily controlled…for our bodies and our unconsciousness want to be known.

    Annie writes,

    "This book reveals specific aspects of my work toward one end; to write history where silence reigned, where silence was broken by an undeciphered cry that went unheard.  When all the traces of history have been erased and the body itself is inscribed with an unknown language, how does a child begin to speak?  How is it possible to listen so that the child comes to know something vital, and speaking freely becomes possible, so that living inside one's own body is no longer a nightmare?  These are the questions that would guide my listening."

    "This book carries stories of terrible anguish girls have lived. They are stories of how something real impinges on us and marks us in our bodies. This thing – I'll call it trauma – enters our speech as if by stealth, through the back door, in the night.  Then it sounds as though we are speaking in code to one another and to ourselves, and that code is both the mark of trauma and is, itself traumatizing." Annie

    Her book, as well as the movie, "The Celebration" by Thomas Vinterberg, are clearly making me see that when you are not allowed to talk about abuse, when your mind has shoved it far away out of reach of memories, Your body and life's actions will still be screaming out your correct past.

    Annie, also gave me an insight about abusers.  How their ACTIONS are showing what happened to them.  How they are speaking their trauma in actions.  It makes sense to me. 

    So, what is so thrilling in a horrifying way is that we are all speaking, just that no one is listening, for we are concentrating on what is being said, and not what is being acted out.

    What Annie came to know, is that in a group dynamic of the old therapy ways, where you all sit around and 'share' your story, the story wasn't being told. But, put them in a room doing art, without rules, just giving them the supplies and a few words, incredible things would show up.  The body and unconsciousness would be doing the art!

    I know this to be true in my experience; my quilts were done without direction, plan or words.

    Unsayable is in the Art!


  • My Truth was Welcomed In.

    As I sit back and ponder my Keynote at Dial Help's Gala, I recall telling Tom Rosemurgy, that I always felt safer when he was there.  It even struck me as odd, for I was mingling and thoroughly enjoying myself, so where did the "unsafe" feeling come from.

    It occurred to me while taking my sheets off the line, that what he does is he upholds my truth with me.  He carries it, he believes me.  He, the Law Man.

    I felt so safe with Tom and the Dial Help girls and even with the Audience.  Safe meaning my truth about my history was honored.

    When I feel that with these kind folks, it makes me understand what "hostile" means.

    It means NOT believing in me…

    I know that some of my family reads this blog, and they would dispute my claims, that they don't believe me…or my story.  For they would say they do.

    Yet the sole reason, I physically as well as emotionally have put distance between us IS their reaction to my truth.

    While they were retaining a family, I was tearing it down exposing the abuse.

    This is the parting of ways.

    Their focus is and has been on keeping the family unit.  Which then leaves me standing there with my abuse showing and them paying more attention to keeping a family, than looking at how it affected me.

    What I felt on August 9th, as I moved around the atrium with My Lady quilts fully displayed, were folks who seen me.

    Their first agenda or words to me were not why I wasn't with my parents etc.

    They were extremely attentive to the journey an abused person travels in order to regain their power.

    My speech will not win ribbons, but what I love, Love, LOVE is that I did it.

    I stood up and gave it my best first shot.

    Against the family grain, I did what they don't want me to do.  Focus on Abuse and speak of estrangement.

    I am not even certain, they realize that I am estranged…due to their lack of being with my truth and not with the family.  I have felt that they hold me entirely responsible for my poor choice of keeping away from family members, functions and exiting relationships.

    How many folks would stay with someone who required you to keep your truth away.

    I just read today in a book titled, "A Shining Affliction- A story of Harm and Healing in Psychotherapy" by Annie Rogers….

    "I feel we're not talking about me – as I know myself."  She does not respond.  I go on. "When I say something really important to me, it doesn't seem to matter to you."  As I speak, her face is closed.  My words go out into the air and dissolve, as if I've said nothing – or worse, they hang in the room as if I've said the wrong thing.  I keep trying, as if I can find something that will interest Melanie and compel a response.  Then I give up, and we sit in silence again."  

     This is fairly close to the reaction my family has given me…What a great paragraph to depict why we feel the hostility.  There is no welcoming of our truths.

    Here is a picture of Tom…that I love.  He never, not ever, closed his face and let my truth hang in the room as if I had said something wrong. He is a gift to all victims who find the courage to speak up.  And he passed me on to An-Gel, who also accepted me completely.  The ease we have with each other is priceless.  They help carry my truth.  

    IMG_9853

    And here is one of my new friend Barbara Rose. We felt an immediate connection.  I feel humble by her hearing me.  Sitting with my buddy Kirsten Menigoz, who when we met felt a strong immediate comfortableness…old souls reunited.   

    IMG_9980

    IMG_9910
    Imagine what a fine reception for my truth!  A beautiful venue…and even Live music of Melissa Davis.

    IMG_9869
    Thanks Melissa…it added a wonderful lively touch.

    Here I am in my speech talking about loving my lady, even without hair and standing like this.

    IMG_0003
    I love my open stance, strong and sure.

    IMG_0029
    And I love this one of the three of us. These two ladies are working hard to help victims…and I have now joined their team.  

    It certainly was a night to remember…a place that honored my truth….stood in reverence of my quilts…I was completely at home there, for my truth was welcomed in.

    Thanks to all the Dial Help Team, Tom and the community!  I am humbled by it all. 

  • My Lady and I are on a Crusade!

    Well it is official, I am a public speaker…I am no longer a first-timer.  I trusted in my natural ability to share and speak from my inner self, and it worked. 

    Some were a bit taken aback, when my plan as to just speak.  To carry no notes, to not prepare, but arrive and let it come…to just allow what comes to mind spill forth. 

    I knew anything less would be unnatural for me and would have me being one step removed from the event, like playing me being me.

    So I skipped right to me.

    I felt good.

    I felt strong, and it flowed out unrestrained, nothing was off limits, I was open.

    A few times I did leave the audience with concern for a few tears being shed by my daughter and my friend…but I hopped back into the speech and reconnected to the audience.

    The woman who gave my introductions did a brilliant job, a perfect segue into me.

    She quoted my blog.

    "I wonder what the Guest Speaker will say tomorrow evening at the Dial Help Gala?  I wonder what parts of her 7 1/2 year journey out of dysfunction will come to mind? What would the donors who support Dial Help most want to know?  How often does an event such as this have the opportunity to hear a victim share their story…and what parts would be the most helpful to the community at large?  

    I have begun many speeches in my head and when I recognize the lack of an audience, it fizzles out….Well your audience is here now, Beth.

    And so I got up feeling very surreal.  Me, a public speaker??? Really???

    But, there sat the public, so I guess so. 

    I can't really say what I said, for I was saying it not listening…which I know will sound strange, but that is how it went.  I know I hit the spots I wanted them to know…

    How it is that an abused child loses a family when they set out to heal…how the old detective didn't want my sexual abuse to come between my relationshipw with my father and how I wanted him to find one, just one, common denominator….but he didn't.  How, the community would help the victims by staying in reality and not budging.  How Silence is for the Perpetrator and Speaking out is for the Victim/Survivor.  

    My one moment of emotional wobbliness came when I read Rythea's quote.

    "The people who have lost their parents and families due to abuse deserve the utmost respect and support. These people have risked it all to heal and stand up for the truth. These people are heroes and angels who hold a horrific reality for everyone else. They have suffered and escaped, and for that, I bow my head in reverence."

    When I was done, Dial Help gave me a vase of fresh flowers in appreciation for my work.  I was in shock and awe, for I have only been there but a few months.  

    As the Gala ended…many people sought me out, asking to purchase a quilt, my book, offered eye to eye contact saying to me… "You are brave"  "Strong" "Courage"  "Powerful"

    I accepted their words…I felt them into each of my cells, they rang true.

    Oh, and I found a new friend.  An instant comfortable strong familiar knowing, a tug, a draw, a magnetic pull and our personalities meshed, connected.  Something neither of us could have stopped if we tried.  I invited her to come to the WIND…she accepted.  She does visions…of course, since our first creative project is a Vision Collage.

    I was told I was a crusador, before this event…and had to look up the meaning.

    "A vigorous concerted movement for a cause or against abuse."  Yep, that is me.

    My Lady and I are on a Crusade!

    Below is the link to our local paper.  Check out where I am! 

    Daily Mining Gazette

    My daughter took many photographs. When she completes her work on them, I will pass them on!


  • Wreckage We Called Family.

    Rythea Lee's book, "Trauma into Truth – Gutsy Healing and Why It's Worth It."

    She has words and her Art…she answers questions that she was asked most often…it is an artful book.

    Here is one section that popped out to me, having just experienced an encounter with my mother.  Rythea knows my view.

    The question: "Was it Lonely?"

    "Lonely like a solitary walk down a long wooded pathway.  Lonely like the sting of cold air when your warm hand lets go of mine.  Lonely as if I am entering a park full of busy unrecognizable people.  I have felt this sweet kind of lonely."

    "Then there was the lonely of sitting across the dinner table looking at my mother and sensing something was wrong. A wall, an electric fence, a city of buildings, an entire continent between us. She had hurt me early on but now she was smiling at me.  Her arms had not held me when I was tiny and crying but now she smiled at me as if we were close.  I told myself lies in order to feel one with her.  I said she would never hurt me, she didn't mean to, it never happened, I'm crazy, and clearly we are close, look at how her eyes water when she smiles at me.  I created vats of fantasies setting off warm fuzzies within me, living inside them completely."

    " All the fantasies in the world could not eradicate my terror. That kind of loneliness was deadly.  The loneliness of sitting across from someone who supposedly adores you and feeling sheer terror.  That kind of loneliness would undo me.  So I went away and learned to live with a lonely that had congruence.  I was alone, I was without the woman who had given birth to me. I was leaping into a void of unknown solitude but I could live with that loneliness.  It was a lonely that made sense." Rythea

    I get what Rythea means.  I love that she can separate the two lonely places…and how one makes sense and the other is sheer terror.  

    Underneath the question, "Is healing a selfish Act?" she writes.

    "There have been countless days when I wanted my life to be different. I wanted my parents to be different parents, my siblings to be different siblings, my path to be a different path.  I went so far as to pretend the abuse I suffered did not exist.  I was willing to blot out any inkling of unrest just to have a family, to be part of the only home I had ever known."

    "Was it selfish to choose the truth above all else, even security?  Was it selfish to dive into years of grief and longing to give birth to the only self available to me, me?"

    "Selfish would have been passing the abuse on to my children, my loved ones, my partner.  Selfish would have been carrying the denial into the next generation. Selfish would have been becoming angry, scared, small, withheld person who never healed, who did not find her clear unique voice."

    "If I did not choose to remember the violence, the sexual abuse, the loss, the crazy-making epicenter of my childhood, I would not know who I am.  I would not have have harbored the tools of self-responsibility that enabled me to be in service to other survivors.  I would not have grasped, down to the bone, the kind of atrocities people live through and been able to offer my understanding."

    "The time it has taken to recover my essence has been a long, indescribably challenging road. I wanted to skip the journey and go into hiding.  I craved addictions and self destructive acts that would turn off the stark reality of what people do to children. But then, in the quiet place of faith, I sensed that love was growing.  Every day it grew in the compost of my terror. Amidst the wreckage of what people call "The American Family" stood a figure unafraid.  I had something to give and it had not died."  Rythea.

    I so know the feelings of being thought of as being selfish, as I don't wave, as I drive past, as I keep my eyes, mind and soul focused on healing. How my behavior today and my actions are cited as being worse than my fathers abuse, I know.

    I know what it means to dive into years of grief and longing.  Only those who have sought healing know the pain and echoing feelings of craving family…when you head out to save the only one you can….you.

    I also know that it would have been very selfish and self absorbing to not at least try and change the pattern…to protect the generations below you, to stop the legacy from continuing to your children's children.  It wasn't for me, that I began this journey, my sights originally were upon my children. For me…it seemed it was too late.  Yet, in being self less, I found me.

    In finding me, I am setting up a new pattern…one where when I look into my children's eyes, they will not shudder in fear…nor will I sit in guilt for not doing something.

    Rythea is another huge affirmation on my journey…

    I love too, how she felt the love begin to grow. Feeling that love, and experiencing joy, is truly what keeps us going.  Through the days and weeks and years of grieving about the wreckage we called family.

    Thanks again Rythea for understanding me.  Now I know, for you are me.