I M Perfect lady

Tag: silence

  • Against my Mind.

    What an odd Christmas I had, it was almost like an out of body experience, certainly out of control, where Christmas joy seemed to mock me outside, yet inside lay a storm of hurt, anger, sorrow, confusion, resentment, more confusion a mess of wires all tangled up with beauty everywhere.

    It is odd to be so riled up inside and the outside appearing picture perfect.

    Looking inside our home last night, you would see a beautiful family and a wonderful Christmas scene; the only dark cloud was fuming around me.

    Today I didn’t know how my day would go, if I would be able to get out from under the cloud, if the fog would leave so I could sit in peace.

    Sit and just breathe in the day.

    My family watched me cautiously, wary and on tippy toes and eggshells, as I did my self.

    Wondering at my own sense of mental balance.

    This mental dysfunction of co-dependency can strike at any time, a hook is caught upon another’s action and blame and resentment ensue.

    If I could know that a snag was coming, I could head it off at the pass, but I am surprised as the ones I am snagged onto, unconsciously a lesson is arriving unbeknownst to me.

    I stay hooked as long as I blame the other, the only way I can work my way free is to see where my responsibility and actions led to the hookup.

    My freedom comes when I can stay aware in the midst of the snag and wise enough to know it isn’t all their fault, that it takes two to tangle.

    And what I usually find, is that they are doing their thing and I hop on wanting, wishing, dreaming that they will drop their life to satisfy mine.

    Oddly enough while it may have been the worst Christmas Eve ever, it also is a template to model the rest by, using it to design free Christmas activities in the future.

    Today, as the dinner preps were needed, I asked.

    I asked for help.
    I asked for specifics.
    I asked and it was met with no resistance, no complaints.

    Now this can’t be a real test, for they were so not wanting a Johnny raincloud on Christmas day or at the dinner table.

    My tone was different, the manic need was gone, there seemed to be a team spirit, a tone of many helping hands.

    Again, I know that they were coming, that we were coming off of a bad experience, where my manic mood stole Christmas joy, so I can’t be sure the atmosphere changed permanently, but a change was from deep dark fear to neutral.

    I will not say I was filled with joy or filled with gratitude or love or peace, but I was out of the depths of hell.

    Even in neutral the rest could feel their own joy, I wasn’t stealing their peace.

    How awful to witness the affects one dark rain cloud can have on a party, and to be it.

    It’s like the party planner; the event coordinator creates this wonderful display, great food, and then sits and stews in the midst like a bad stench spreading it everywhere.

    Like Dr. Jill Bolte says, “you are responsible for the energy you bring into the room.”

    Yet I felt so out of control.

    What I can do next time is just state how out of control, how angry, hurt, confused, resentful I am and it is best that I be excused.

    Taking my dark insides with me.

    Christmas for me was seeing the damage that darkness of co-dependency can do, how it changes the feelings of the others in the room, how it takes out joy.

    It is scary that I still have episodes of this.

    Yet I feel that each time I learn more about myself and hopefully be wiser next time.

    It left us all happy with neutral, no over joyful or dreaded darkness, just an idle.

    My mental dysfunctional co-dependency bouts start with a small item and pick up speed and volume if left unchecked, its almost like I got drunk on negative energy.

    Today I felt hung over and depleted from being strung so tight my head and jaw in a vice, muscles taunt, breath shallow, vision clouded.

    Braced to fight my misconstrued expectations to the death, while wanting desperately to be free and relaxed and calm and accepting, bending to the change in plans.

    Instead I put support beams of thoughts around the expectations built upon nothing.

    Like fluff on a cloud.

    Nothing supporting nothing.

    Mental thoughts being planned by a mental mind.

    The left side of my head is bruised, my jaw in pain, my left neck and shoulder ache, all a stiff from my struggle with reality.

    What I want most is to relax, to breathe, and to process this episode to my DNA.

    What I caught a few hour glimpse of is my old life, a spirit of Christmas pasts.

    My life review brought to life in reality.
    I had just been thinking a few weeks ago, that our home hasn’t had me go ‘crazy’ in a long while, and there I was in full living color, out of reality, crazy.

    Tonight I am grateful that I visit this state now, but don’t live there full time.

    How incredibly hard that life is.
    How separated, how desolate, how fearful, how lonely…

    What I think now is that this mental dysfunctional co-dependency, is something to manage, never cured.

    That it can sneak in and steal my peace at any time, that the more I set the stage, by voicing my concerns, needs, desires, the less opportunity it has to grab on and hijack my life.

    My antidote is flexibility and freedom.
    Theirs and mine, against my mind.

  • Boldly slips away unscathed.

    What struck me last night is that the definitions of good and evil in my childhood home were competing for the upper hand, that my father’s heaven was my mother’s hell, and visa versa.

    It truly is that one man’s heaven is another man’s hell.

    My father’s heaven depended upon my silence, and my mother’s actually too…she needed the image of his being just a loving dad, and he did too, both sides terrified of hell, if truth be told.

    I can see how easily it was to manipulate a child in our home, for the values contradicted each other, the front divided, two roads leading to hell if truth be spoken out loud and unforgiving.

    Life was much easier on my father and his pedophile ways, to have silence…it was much easier on my mother, for she didn’t have to know.

    She may have heard us tell our stories, but she didn’t have to believe. If you don’t believe the words spoken, you don’t have to act. If you don’t have to act, your life doesn’t change.

    It is by far harder to change, than it is to remain committed to the cause.

    The cause of us remaining all together.

    My father’s hell was the truth.
    And actually my mother’s hell is the truth as well.
    They lived in heaven in silence.

    But for me, the truth has set me free.
    Hell is being quiet…Heaven is speaking out loud and often.

    I can see how many a child faces the same thing, that the adults in the room lose big time, if the child speaks, that the ones holding our survival need us to play along, pretend and hold up the façade.

    As my friend said, “what will people think” if they knew what was really going on.

    We are to act like it is heaven, while dancing in hell, going with the flow, following the lead of those taking “care” of us.

    Preachers preach of the evil on the outside, while we are imbedded in the camp of evil on the inside.

    What is up and what is down, who is right and who is wrong, or is our camp of evil far reaching?

    The compound has its own boundaries that reach far and wide.

    I know that when I first discovered the evil in my childhood, I quickly seen the churche’s evil, and then even the law of the land.

    Claiming to be the fighters of evil, while many are incapable to actually combat it when they see it face to face.

    When evil knocks at their door, some bless it.
    Some reduce the charges and set it free.
    Some open up their homes allowing access to more little girls.
    Some love evil as a way to heaven.

    The list is long and powerful.

    We are dancing with the devil each time evil knocks and we treat it with goodness, kindness, fairness, compassion, etc.

    Evil dances in our faces, showing us all that it is, an unruly force, taunting our weak defenses, it boldly slips away unscathed.

  • Die in peace.

    A horrifying thought flittered across my mind, “ I need to write a letter to my father,” and it is like a thorn that won’t leave me alone, a bug, a thought I can’t swipe away, or flick back to where it came.

    It arrived like an unwanted guest and refuses to leave until I entertain the idea.

    I am not sure I will send the letter or if I can write it, but it seems that just as I silently left my mother, I also stopped cold any interactions with my father on December 4, 2004.

    My letter to my mother had to inspire this thought.

    My body trembled in terror back then and I haven’t addressed this man in any way, other than honoring the feelings of wanting to remain far far away.

    I haven’t explored in writing the dynamics between him and I, instead letting the words abuse and rape gloss over and suffice.

    Just not sitting down in the middle of what that feels like to a little girl.

    What will I say?
    What needs to be said?
    What thread needs to be followed through to its completion?

    What is odd to me, is that I have never once thought of writing a letter to him, yet in the past I had a few letters started to my mother, but never ever have I begun one to him or even considered one, until today.

    And I even thought to the point of sending it and finding the address to my sister’s house where he lives.

    I am sure this is the natural progression that follows the one I sent my mother, although perhaps this could be one to both of them, the final good-bye, a swan song to my parents.

    Part of me is afraid to write this.
    There is a part of me that is afraid not to write it as well, for a gift may get left there unopened.

    Many years ago I began a letter but it so enraged me I had to
    stop.

    Is there something I feel needs to be said to give me peace?

    I wonder if the swan sings to die in peace?

  • Pick Up the Broken Piece.

    What a slow learner I am, how incredibly naïve and blindly stupid…I am surprised that I am just now catching on. How has it taken me this long, almost six years to figure this out?

    The pain I have gone through, the mental anguish and all the soul searching, and still I didn’t know.

    My family didn’t break apart, wasn’t destroyed and didn’t crumble under the weight of abuse, it wasn’t shattered, or flung upside right or mentally broken, only I was.

    I broke.

    In my head I had them all broken up like me, but they remain intact, a full family, minus a few.

    No worse for the wear, unscathed and unbroken, they are holding up strong as the same family unit, while I am broken.

    My brokenness is sharp, loud, and unwanted, a jagged point that doesn’t fit into the familiar routine.

    A routine I can’t remember, forgetting the lines and missing the steps, characters changing before my eyes, my script no longer matches theirs.

    When they laugh I cry, what they love I fear, when they gather I flee…I shout at their silences, say wrong words that jumble up the play.

    I am the heckler or a bad actor playing on the wrong set and ruining the show.

    When I am gone and silent the show returns to its familiar dialogue.

    I see the picture clearer now…I see me trying to direct a play in progress, wanting to hand out new scripts, change characters and lines, make it a horror movie instead of a comedy…

    What I have been trying so hard to do is change a play in progress.

    I have been wanting them to change so the broken me fits in…while they want me to return to the stage unbroken, healed, once again the old me.

    The spot is open, the stage is there unchanged all I have to do is not be broken and rejoin the chorus line.

    What I know to be true of all people who are abused within the family, it is not so much the first betrayal, but the second one.
    The second betrayal is that once you expose yourself and speak your words is that nothing changes, except that you are now alone and exposed.

    Kicked off the stage of your childhood home.

    I sit here dumbfounded at my naiveté how I foolishly believed that a child, even an adult child that was broke, would break the whole family, but my family marched on, again.

    No one stopped to pick up the broken piece.

  • Hand and Hand…

    There seems to be two energies of silence, awareness and unawareness, peace and hostility, love and fear, solitude and loneliness…

    There is silence to shun and hurt to push out and away that isn’t inclusive but divided.

    Silence that is cold and uncaring, thoughtless and too busy, unaware and out of touch, forgotten…and good intentions piled high, never spoken.

    Silence of lazy relationships or untried or pushed, where silence is required, no speaking of the ills, just silence.

    The silence I was raised upon.

    Seeing, feeling, and knowing my mother’s silence in anger, dark still, raging, quiet, strong silence.

    Her silence against what was wrong.

    Silently staying.

    Silently waiting for change.

    Silently looking away. Silently.

    Silently hoping, wishing, praying.

    Silently walking hand in hand with pain, shame, guilt, abuse, neglect, betrayal, faithless, unworthiness, looking away from innocence and vulnerable child and self.

    The dark side of silence…where nothing changes, pain continues, victims born, old victims live, abuse blossoms.

    Silence isn’t peaceful in an abusive home.
    Silently we suffer.

    Breaking the silence I have found myself in a new kind of silence, the knowing silence.

    Knowing silence is peaceful, strong, empowering.

    I speak out about the abuse, but am silent with the abusers.

    Living the opposite.

    Where before my ‘peace’ was gotten from being silent, I needed to be silent in order to survive, to be in my home, my family.

    A false sense of peace and security living silently in abuse, blind and unknowing.
    Now my peace is to speak of my abuse, telling is my peace. Telling brings me power.

    Silence and abuse go hand and hand…

  • Let the Pain Out

    “Real difficulties can be overcome, it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable.” ~Theodore N. Vail

    When you face what you actually are compared to what you desire to be, you will find much peace, it is trying to be someone else that’s impossible.

    Letting go of the potential, the prize of someday, the if only of yesterday, and the idealized version of self that is the hardest to do.

    To sit down fully in imperfection and disappointing the mind, by facing all the evidence contrary to many beliefs.

    What I felt most for the men on stage with Oprah was that they were unable to claim their lost innocence and how abuse changed them.

    They wanted what is impossible to attain, and in doing so sit in denial of whom they are.

    They are the combination of innocence lost and the affects of abuse, and when they can see the imperfections of their lives, they will see how perfectly it is.

    How abuse does steal innocence, how if you don’t address abuse, abuse lives its life for you.

    It seems that you are a victim when you repeatedly succumb to the wishes of if only, or I can’t be different, and you become a victor when you stand and state the obvious.

    I was abused.
    I am confused because of the abuse.
    I lived an upside down life due to being abused.

    Until we can recognize how upside down we are, we can’t seek to right ourselves.

    By holding on to the picture of innocence, we miss who we now are.

    I will never not know the feelings of terror of a father.
    I will never not know who I would be without the abuse, but I can know who I can be in spite of it.

    There is a life after abuse, a way to reclaim your life today, but not undo yesterday.

    Life after abuse starts when you out yourself.
    Until then, you are locked in the dark with the secret.

    Once you step out, your life after abuse can begin…Abuse and its shame lives in the dark quiet silence.

    You don’t have to tell the whole world, but speak to someone, open the wound and let the pain out.

  • Being imperfect has set me free….

     

    “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”   

               Martin Luther King

     

    ‘…the silence of our friends’… it’s the silence that keeps gnawing at me.  I will get secret messages from family, but not in public, silence, why?

     

    It just dawned on me; it isn’t the silence that’s the problem it’s ME!

     

    It is Me?

     

    I am shocked and amazed that it is Me that keeps them silent, that I am the problem.

     

    I am the one that silences their voices, they don’t want to join theirs with Me.

     

    Me, it’s me…wow.

     

    In a past blog about silence from family, I discovered then that it was easier to be with my father, most actions and words were in support of him, and it is still the same today.

     

    Although I have a few secret members whispering to me, and I did ask them to join me publicly, and all declined.

     

    Declined in fear or in shame of being with me, being seen like me, being grouped with me???

     

    It did feel like I was being denied a friendship…a space remains between us and silence is the wedge that keeps us apart.

     

    At this point I want to acknowledge those of you who bravely stand with me, who are willing and able to raise your voices with mine, to link your names with mine, to publicly be with me as I speak of sexual abuse.

     

    Me a daughter of a pedophile, a victim of abuse, a confused at times, adult woman of incest; that is me!

     

    That is who I am. 

    I can’t change it.

    I am just being myself.

    I am publicly writing about how it is to be an openly abused woman.

     

    I understand your silence now and I honor it.

     

    I M perfect, and it’s impossible not to be.

     

    Being imperfect has set me free…

     

     

     

     

     

  • Ahead of time.

    It has been 10 days since my brother and I shared any communication, no emails, no texts, and certainly not a phone call, in silence our relationship is on pause since our last phone conversation.

     

    The silence isn’t pregnant, or full of potential hurtfulness, but rather a soft silence, a silence that is healing and one that we both respect and participate in, but I still miss him.

     

    While he has been sitting in silence, meditating, and being still, as well as doing selfishly for others, I am doing the opposite.

     

    I am working more, crunching more and more into the space of a day, instead of keeping spaces of stillness and peace.

     

    I miss the quiet times, the space allowed to sit and stare at the fire in the fireplace, the pondering of fabrics, colors and design, I miss just doing as I feel, instead of feeling forced into moving.

     

    Delivering mail we are always fighting with time.  This is the first job ever that I had where I feel time is fleeting and the job too large to squeeze in.

     

    I have been doing two routes this past week, one allows us a ride in the country, so at least I get to view nature and find breathing space, the other in town feels really confusing.

     

    I wonder how it feels for him to step out of the time/space continuum and just be.

     

    I know now that I prefer the slower pace, the Artist way.

     

    Tomorrow he will call when his silence has broken, I am wondering if he broke the spell his mind has had on him, did he break through to be more present, settling down the racing mind.

     

    While he experienced the racing mind, I have been racing time and reality.  My slower meditative, contemplative mind is slammed into a hurry up reality.

     

    How will he like being back in his life again?  To once again join the human race.

     

    Isn’t it funny we call it the human race?

     

    What are us humans racing for?

    Is there a prize?  Is there a goal?

    Will those who race faster win this one?

    What is the purpose of this race?

    Who gets to decide how fast we run, where we run, and if we run?

     

    What if we just sit?

    What if we take ourselves out of the race and walk?

    What if we slow down and enjoy the scenery along the way?

     

    My whole life used to be living to get somewhere, now I am somewhere living.

     

    I am here now.

    I am sitting by my fireplace typing, I hear the fire crackling, and have a slight focus on time, but for now I sip my tea and put my thoughts on paper.

     

    Time is always present, but I am too.  We both jostle each other to grab this moment, more and more I win.

    I am ahead of time.

    284

  • ….walked as you.

    My sister sent a request on facebook a few days ago, a ‘friend request’ and I accepted it with some trepidation.

     

    I am not sure why she is stepping into my world after 4 years and I asked her that.  I also asked if she still holds on the to views of her last letter.

     

    So far there hasn’t been a response, perhaps my request is not one she is willing to answer.

     

    In life we are asked many requests and in the past I would jump in without first asking a few questions or testing the waters, if you asked, I jumped and usually asked how high!

     

    Now, I am much wiser and hold my heart in a place of value, I just don’t go walking into places that will hurt me.

     

    Her silence could mean many things, yet I am surprised that her eagerness to have me back seems to be on pause.

     

    What stopped her?  What made her stop her advancement?  What has her retreating or re-thinking….and she could be asking the same of me.

     

    I know why I am not eagerly walking forward to embrace this woman, my experience of her still rings in my ears. 

     

    I invited her to read my blog as a way to find out if our ideals match, to see if she still wanted to be my friend. 

     

    Where can the two of us meet, what common ground is there for us to stand upon?  Why does she now feel that she wants to be part of my life, and which part?

     

    What part of my life do you want to enter into?   You suggested that you love me, so which part?  And that you have hopes of all the sisters reuniting, what will we reunite?

     

    How can I unite with you, we seem such opposites.

     

    I have always felt that if a brother or sister walked towards me I would meet them half way and not turn around.

     

    I am standing here facing you, asking what it is you feel inside about me.  It is a fair request.

    What do you see in me?

     

    In order to love me, you have to know me.  You can’t just love what you dream of me to be.

     

    I am not a thought in your head about what a sister should do, could do, or would do; I am a live walking talking moving person.

     

    Do you know me outside of your dreams?

     

    If you want to enter into a relationship with me, I ask just for your truth, show me who you are.

     

    If you are reading the blog, go back to the beginning and read along, it will open your eyes as to who I am, and I will understand if you withdraw your request.

     

    It seems that I became the enemy, the other side, and I know that you will have to forsake all you have ever known to walk along with me.

     

    It is way too much to ask.

    It is and will always be up to you to be with me.

     

    I understand your silence.

    I am the monster you fear the most.

    I am reality.

     

    I am reality walking and doing free of dysfunction, an enemy of your mind, your thoughts and your beliefs, your love and your security.  I am the opposite of all you have even been.

     

    Your silence will be a signal that you are not wanting to be with me.  I understand.

     

    I know where you are sitting…. I sat there.

    I know what you are thinking, I thought there.

    I know where your loyalties lie, I was loyal too.

    I know you for I know me.

     

    I wish you peace with this decision.
    I wish you strength and courage.

     

    I walked free….so I know you can too.

    You are much braver than me!

     

    A sister, one who walked as you.

     

     

    374