I'm Back

It's been a while... since I've posted anything, since I've allowed myself to stop and really reflect and then share. I've been in hiding. I've been participating in much needed time away to reflect, confront, and go further on the path to healing.

I think I'm ready now to come back.

I've spent long enough in the shadows dealing with the darkness. It's time to step out into the light, for good.

It's been a long emotional journey since the beginning of this year.

I truly had no idea just what a journey I would have to take, and honestly, I'm still recuperating from it. Some days, I feel just fine. Others, like today, it hits me real hard and I struggle to hold tight to the momentum I've gained, to the progress I've made.

I'm learning that there are going to be seasons. There will be valleys and mountains. There will be seasons of wilderness for discovery, and there will be seasons of growth, seasons of resting, etc. I'm learning that healing is a process and I can't rightly expect to be fully recovered in only a few years after a lifetime of injury. It's just not logical, and wounds to the mind and heart take so much longer to heal than that of physical injuries. I naively thought I could just declare I am healed and changed and so create my new life of recovery. It is so not how it is. Recovery is a long painful process. I thought the pain was limited to when the blows were actually being dealt, but then I think back to every physical injury I've ever sustained. Somehow, it seems to hurt more in the healing process. The bruising hurts, the wound starts throbbing as it heals and the pain can be even more excruciating than the initial trauma.

Recovery means closing the door to the abuser and beginning to sort through all the baggage, one painful piece at a time, healing slowly as each area is dealt with. Recovery is a process. I hope it is one that will be over soon and I will have successfully passed, but in listening to other's who are where I am, I see that it may be lifelong. Trauma shapes an individual. It rewrites the story. There is no erasing it neat and clean like it never existed. It leaves marks. Permanent scars. The wounds heal, but some evidence remains. A person injured in a car wreck will always be a person who survived a car wreck, even long after the accident happened. I am learning that this is part of my identity now, as much as I wish my story were different. It is a part of me. Just like mother's who miscarry their precious babies. That baby was and will always be a part of them. It is now a part of their story and can never be erased.

My story is now uniquely my own, though not uncommon. I am learning more and more how common it is, how I am not alone, and how normal it is in a very sad way.

I'm still partly numb and partly just trying to get through each day as it comes and the new emotions and challenges that come with it.

I'm learning each day, at almost 30, how to do this thing called life. I am learning what it means to function healthily in society and at home. I am learning that home doesn't have to mean the place we run from, but should be the place we run to; that real love doesn't hurt, but helps lift up. I am learning so much about what is healthy and unhealthy in life, what is normal and not okay. That is part of recovery too. As I approach 30 in less than a month, I'm still struggling to accept this new life where it is safe to be me and crawl out of the shadows. I'm accepting I do have worth and value. I'm accepting that the people that hurt me were the ones with the problem, not that I was the problem like they tried so hard to convince me of throughout my life. I'm learning that family means more than blood and real love is a sanctuary from the storms of life, not the warped version I had where "love" and "family" were what crushed me and put the knife in my hands convincing me I was never good enough and better off dead. I'm learning that very few people really care about others (me) when it doesn't fit into their pretty idea of what they think things should be. Few people are willing to stick it out through the muddy times, sit with me through tears, and help me back on my feet when I fall... but OH those few people are SO precious.

I will write. I will speak up for those that didn't have a voice and are like I was. I will be an advocate for the abused children and spouses. I will be a Light helping lead people out of the Darkness. I will use every pain I ever endured to help provide healing for others. I will not let anything cripple me or keep me back. I am not a victim. I am a warrior. I will not be bullied into silence. I will not be manipulated with guilt trips or controlling fear tactics any longer. I will not listen to the voice of the Enemy speaking through the people who should love and protect me the most. For as much negative as was done to and intended for me, I will spread ten, a hundred, a thousand-fold of positive back into this world to combat those negatives. They thought they were crushing me. They were only refining me and making me stronger than ever. It doesn't mean I'm not weak or that I'm unbreakable. It simply means I won't ever stop trying. I refuse to let them take any more from me than they already have.

I was broken.

I am broken.

I am now in recovery.

I am in the process of being healed.

It is a part of my story.

It is not THE story.

My story is not over.

It has only just begun!