Comfortable With Yourself

"The worse loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself." Mark Twain

For too long I walked around feeling as if I weren't attached to myself, almost as if I was outside my body walking beside it rather then actually being in it. Being separate and not a part of who I was, was a totally weird sensation. It's almost like floating through the world; - not being grounded.

My body wasn't safe. I felt like it betrayed me. It allowed all the abuse, - the beatings, the kidnap and the rape to happen. In my mind, just being seen and having a female body caused the violence. It was my enemy. I fought with myself, trying to force the fear and terror to go away - I fought against myself to be strong, but I was afraid, so afraid I couldn't stand it. The fear forced me to pull more and more into myself and away from reality.

As a kid, I willed myself to disappear until I couldn't feel anything. I lived in my head, in fantasies that took me to another place, a safe place. A place where no one could hurt me. But even that stopped working at some point. I needed to find something stronger, more effective that lifted me out of the pain and shame and fear. So I cut myself, ripped open my skin, injected my body full of dope and forced myself to throw up even if I ate one small bite of something. I told myself, I wasn't allowed to exist. I had been told over and over I deserved nothing, I was garbage, worthless, ungrateful. I believed it. Words are so powerful. I lived on those words, falling deeper and deeper into a dark hole that became harder and harder to get out of.

And then, He touched me. He pulled me up and out of that pit of hell. In a hospital emergency room, where I lay under oxygen - the damage I had done to my body extensive - He touched me. He redeemed me. He breathed life into me. I felt it. I knew something supernatural had happened. It was powerful. So powerful I stopped using the drugs. Right from that moment. Fourteen years of shooting up, three and four times a day,- Gone - Over - because of His touch.

I don't know why He chose to free me. Why me? I'm no more special than anyone else. I thought of friends who died, friends who took their own lives or accidentally overdosed, - why me? Why did He let me live? I don't understand but I am determined now to to look back, as painful as it is, for one purpose, - to reach out and help someone else caught in their own cycle of torment. There is hope. There is freedom - For me, I found it in Him. When nothing else worked, He did. He touched me. He changed me. He turned the light of His love on. The darkness left. The fear went. Now I live with tremendous joy and gratitude.