I M Perfect lady

Tag: blogs

  • Find Their Way Here.

    "If I had experienced different things, I would have different things to say."  Mark Nepo

    I loved yesterday's reading…I know what he means.

    "So often, I have felt troubled and guilty bearing witness to my pain, and yet, not to make things worse.  Somehow, in saying just what Mother had done in her cruel need to be the center, or just what Father couldn't do out of his fear of facing my mother; somehow telling the truth as I know it makes me feel like a bad person – as if I'm making my pain up, as if I'm hurting others by saying bad things about them."

    "But the unshakable bottom of all this is that I'm not making things up.  If I have unkind things to say, it's because I have experienced unkind things. And so, my only guide in this witnessing is to be accurate and honest.  While I am not a victim, I didn't ask for certain shaping experiences to happen to me.  I didn't ask to be slapped or ridiculed as a boy or to be mistreated by lifelong friends later in life.  In truth, If I had experienced different things, I would have different things to say."

    "What is most healing about bearing witness to things exactly as they are, including my own part in my pain, is that when the voice of pain fits the pain, there is no room for distortion or illusion.  In this way, truth becomes a clean bandage that heals, keeping the dirt out of the wound."

    "To voice things as they are is the nearest medicine."  Mark Nepo

    I was raised, "If you don't have anything nice to say, say nothing at all."  That not nice things were not to be talked about.  Which leaves the abuse out of the picture or any negative experience.  

    Where then is it okay to talk about unkind things? 

    I had a profound visual with two blogs by one person.  How one blog only had the "Nice things to say" while the other seemed to delve into to unkind behaviors of others…like there is a need to keep the two blogs separated.

    It brought a clear visual for me to see how my mother kept a clean and kind blog, while behind the scenes unkindness happened, but it never made it to her blog page/life.

    That our unkind treatment from our father had no place in my mother's idyllic life.  It would mar the otherwise beautiful large family picture she was painting.  Where my father was a hardworking provider for his family, who never asked for nothing.

    If you are silent about the Unkind things, your blog/life would look picture perfect.  

    My mother's life had no room for any negative talk about my father. Which left us no place to go. Our wounds did not fit into her picture perfect family. His negative treatment wasn't allowed, let alone hers. 

    I know that my mother kept separated our sexual abuse, it belonged on another blog, not the every day blog, but a special one that was rarely visited and you didn't want to stay there long and it was 'private', you didn't air this out to everyone.  Abuse doesn't go on the every day blog…it is to be hidden off to the side.  So hidden that no one talked about it, ever.  Until someone broke the rule and spoke up and said, "unkind" things about an unkind experience with my father.

    His and her negative blogs then were revealed.

    I had lived my whole life working for her daily family blog, not realizing that she had a secret, that I had a secret abuse blog going on as well.  And my life actually made sense when you blended the two.  

    I became totally normal when the two blogs collided.

    What is so key, is that the truth lies in both blogs, but the two blogs shall never meet each other. This is a great visual of disassociation or denial…or in my experience the FALC way. 

    The unkind things go to the blog called, "Forgiveness of Sins"…you speak of it , and then segregate them to another space.

    When she forbid us to bring abuse to her daily blog, she left the real me out.  I wasn't able to be myself in her world.  

    What I have been determined to do was to combine both blogs and make them me.  That is the true representation of me.  

    As I look upon this blog, it is mostly about the things my mother kept hidden…I speak of abuse, of unkind experiences, the things that usually are kept off the daily blogs…find their way here.  

     

  • Uncomfortable to Face

    There is a one two punch in following your feelings.  The blow that you were right when you actually wanted to be proved wrong and secondly that your inner compass is spot on. 

    What people fail to appreciate is that I am not creating the truth that affirms me, they are acting on their own, by their own volition.  

    I am not putting words in mouths or fingers to keyboard, I am not manipulating them or their blog posts or the conditions of their blogs. They are doing this on their own free will.  

    I simply observe and respond.

    My brother's blog, http://www.messyguru.typepad.com received a comment from Jim Torola that succinctly shows why I had to back away.  The character assignation he delivered to my brother has no proof in reality. None.  

    I am not defending my brother, he does this well enough on his own, but I want the record to show if you will, that my actions were validated.

    I can't know why Jim wrote what he wrote or where these ideas came from.  All I can know, is that they don't ring true for me.  He wasn't writing about the brother that I know.

    Walking hand in hand with reality is often painful when you want a different outcome.  But, I have learned that regardless of my wishes, reality marches on.

    It seems one blog has erased all the past posts, but the last one. 

    Are we as good as our last word?  Can you live without a past?  Can you simply erase it like blog posts?  Can you leave out the dark parts and focus up ahead?  Is it possible to live life like you were born today?

    My history is precious, each morsel and drop. Each ugly stain and scuff…is my journey. There is no word I would erase, no part I would remove, no person I would not have met, no lesson I would have missed.

    Each and every thing I have said and done is me being me.  Certainly there are places and very long stretches of me acting unconsciously…of presenting the perfect rendition of a person who is brainwashed.  A confused lost abused person. I did that well.

    I even did a great presentation of exiting out of a dysfunctional family while being dysfunctional.  I was and am viewed as mental and crazy…certainly that can apply. 

    I no longer fit into what they call 'normal' and 'family'.  I stand out, thankfully so.  I no longer mesh with their mentalness.

    But, erase a part or forget a moment, or live like I had no past….never.  My past is what I had to overcome to become who I am today.  

    It was like all aspects of myself were taken away and I was set upon scavenger hunt to get them back.  Finding a piece of my self here and there, a part of me lost in this belief and that desire.

    If I had left my past behind and set out to form a completely new me, I would have left my soul behind.  I would have skipped the hunt to find the real me.

    It would have been leaving one nightmare to build a fantasy…a very similar tactic that an abused child uses.  It wipes out the harsh reality and goes on to create a fantastical blog of kindness…while reality marches on.

    This is exactly what I did as a child.  My reality was too unkind, so I created a nice looking happy place for me to go to, not looking or recording the dark history…

    And sadly, while I was busy in my new happy space, a pedophile was busy molesting little girls. 

    I no longer try to escape to a fantasy land and instead turn and head into that which is uncomfortable to face.

    IMG_4657
    Photograph by Hannah Jukuri

     

     

     

     

     

  • My Truth Against Me

    The battle of the Blogs continue…and I wonder what its real agenda is?  What is the real meat of the discontentment and why does it really matter who writes what or if at all.  

    What I have found upon writing period, whether it be on a blog or not, is that if you write long enough, the truth will emerge…like magic.  If you want to know the answers, writing it out seems to straighten out the mind, so you can find a trail.

    In my pursuit of my own truth writing was and is my greatest tool.

    I write to understand me.  

    In writing I have learned a huge amount about me.  It has been a conversation between me and myself and I have shared this by putting it out in blog form.

    Due my history which I can't escape from, I write from the viewpoint of my history.  I am a woman who was raised in a very strict religion and was raped by my father. 

    The affects of having grown up in that environment changed who I was…it altered me, tilted me, put me on an awkward slant.  It had me seeing the world as a woman with a mental disease.

    Where abuse was a 'normal' life.

    My writings have been to right me.

    To untilt my beliefs.

    To see what abuse touched and to straighten out my mind.

    I write to see clearly, that which I am not able to see.

    I have learned what the affects have done to me and what I passed on to my children.

    I have learned how I left abuse…how I operated with my life due to this backwards start.  

    My blog is a public document of my private struggle.

    Having lived for 46 year so disingenuously, my razor sharp focus now is to be impeccable with my word and to follow them with actions of the same.  I aim to walk my talk.

    I know the cost of not facing my truth…so it is my intent to now live my truth as I know it.  And along the way point out things that I feel are off for me.  

    When they are off or don't seem quite right….I move away.  In the past, I may have stayed out of fear of reprisals, but not any more. Fear doesn't keep me frozen unable to change as life dictates.

    I love that I am free to support a blog and then free to change my mind. I love that others are free to read and then free not to read.  I love that they are free to agree or not agree.  Free to comment or not.  

    Blogging is indeed another vehicle of communication…what you say when you speak is up to you.  If you want to communicate with certain blogs, again up to you.  Or if you want to silently ride along, that too is up to you.  

    My blog tends to push buttons, for it is delving into sacred grounds that are typically unchallenged and usually not aired out in public. I am putting myself out there for anyone to take potshots and they do. I am shining lights upon subjects, people and beliefs that some fear to have disclosed.  I totally understand that I am breaking the unwritten rules.

    I am not being passive and apathetic or pleasing to get along…I am willing to share my life experiences, coming from whence I came….and talking about the two very influential life changing forces…Abuse and Religion… Two hot button subjects.

    I make no apologies…or step softly around items that I know will explode if I dare oppose. I step anyway.  

    Abuse thrives due to walking quietly around it, by whispering instead of putting it out where all can see.

    I have been convicted in the family court for knowing and saying nothing….I will not make that same mistake again.  If I know, If I feel, If I suspect….I will share.

    Tom Rosemergy is the first person I tell when I hear a new name.

    When I discover a new truth, it usually arrives on the blog.  This has been my vehicle to be an open book to read…for in the past, I was way too silent.

    In the past my silence was a vehicle that abuse used.

    Again, there are very few blogs about abuse within the FALC, or ex-members talking candid about their experiences, it isn't always easy to discern the value each blog has.

    My blog will not be of value to those who are in support of the church. My blog will not be of value for those who are not victims of abuse. My blog will not be of value for those who want to remain in toxic relationships. 

    Certainly there will be voyeurs into my life, who then go on and use it to disparage me…who will turn it with their own minds.  I can't control how other people see me.  

    What I have found is that when I am comfortable with my truth, you can't use my truth against me.

     

     

     

     

     

  • The Questioning Part of You.

    There are, at least to my knowledge, not many blogs about the FALC or more succinctly, abuse and the FALC.  When I began blogging about my experience, my focal point wasn't to look against the church, but rather to share my experience about being abused.  I just happen to be a past member of the First Apostolic Lutheran Church.

    In the past year, two more blogs popped up, Jim Torola's and his wife Judy's.  And there is one called extoots, that is similar, but more looking into the churches similar to the FALC and the members that have left.

    Each of us are writing from our points of view, with intentions hidden or in plain view.  

    My intentions were for the sole purpose of allowing others to see my personal journey, healing from being sexually abused as a little girl.  I wanted there to be a place where others could go to relate…and to break the silence.

    We have this wonderful tool that we can communicate with folks we would never have the experience to physically come in contact with. A way to pass on information and a place to voice and comment.

    It truly wasn't my intention to shine a bad light upon the church, but sadly the truth and reality make it so.  

    What some have mistakenly seen as attack or anger towards the church, is actually a passionate voice wanting you to see that within your hallowed walls lurks a sick disease.

    And yes, I agree that all churches have this disease, for all churches are made up of human beings.  I get that.  But there just seems to be a disproportionate amount within the FALC.  And perhaps that isn't even the bigger issue, but the silence about it.

    No one is talking openly and with a passion to stop the spreading of this awful behavior upon little children.

    And there is a cautionary point I want to make, about the blogs that are out there.  Don't read at face value, don't leave your discernment behind, look and see and pay close attention to what isn't there.

    And please do the same here.  I don't want you to believe that which I write, without you first checking to see if it makes sense to you.  I want you to actively question and please dialogue with me.

    I want you to look around your church and families, to listen closely to stories you hear, to awaken your own inner voice and wonder.

    I feel that my blog is open and free for an exchange of ideas.  I am by my own admission a very passionate advocate for victims of abuse…and secondly against parties that seek to control them.

    What I find a bit discerning about Jim's blog is the lack of a comment section. And now Judy's blog has a log on section that seems odd to me.  I don't know that means.  Why does it matter who reads?  I can see that you as a blog owner have the write to take offending comments off, but to closely monitor who is reading seems a tad off.

    The strict control bothers me about both the blogs.

    What puzzles me is that Her second blog is wide open, but there is no discussion that pertains to the FALC, abuse or for that matter subjects that are deeper than the surface.  I find it odd to monitor the deeper subjects… And just interesting that it isn't a blog habit, for she has two totally different blogs.  One closed and one wide open.

    I feel a natural sense of curiosity in this and a huge lack of trust…and feelings that I am being monitored as I enter her site.  I will not register and enter into her 'controlled' site.  

    I don't have a secret part of me, I stand here in the open all sides revealed, there is no part of me that remains in the shadow, nor do I care to closely monitor who looks upon this site…and me.

    It is my intention and hopes that this site will offer comfort and answers and maybe even a place to see a differing view.  A voice in the silence…speaking up and about abuse and the FALC.

    I want you to see me with your truth and your own discernment, please bring all of you to me.  I want this site to be open and free to browse.  I care not who you are as you read, and I hope that what I have to say will awaken the questioning part of you.

     

     

  • Surprises Me!

    “What is so interesting is that your quilt Lady has no body and your blog is all about the body…” is an insight a woman shared with me about my Art. “I don’t think you even see what you do…”

    I was so shocked and surprised at the way this woman was able to see and understand so clearly my Lady…and I was shocked she put the two together and seen the opposite.

    My lady quilts are all about feelings but there isn’t a body or even a face to be seen on the quilts. In fact it is a challenge to create them minus actually having a body, you make the clothes move like a ghost is wearing them.

    And the blog is totally different; it is all about the body, the mind and the soul…all things missing in the quilts.

    On my way home, I was thinking about the Lady not having a body and it struck me deep within, it is how I lived for so long, just clothes. That within me lay a ghost of me, but not one that was able to express herself.

    How curious or not, that my Ladies still have no body…yet are filled with expression or feelings…free enthusiasm a woman owning her life.

    I love that my blog is the missing body from the quilts and that each stand strong alone, but become greater together, like the blog is the background story or the Lady the pictures in a book.

    How interesting to be the author and the artist and learn about your work from another.

    I love that my work surprises me!

    Smug mug pics 2522

    I can see how this quilt is the emerging awareness!