Breaking the Cycle

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it."  Helen Keller

People are always telling me..... they see me as being gentle. And those at work or friends who've read my story say....they don't know how I can be gentle when all I knew was violence. Their words shock me. I've never seen myself as being gentle....I've carried so much anger...so much hatred and lived as a fighter. 

Thoughts: The cycle of abuse can be broken. What happens to us doesn't define who we are...for a long time, though....I didn't believe that. I moved in the world as if it was my fault...as if there was something wrong with me and that I caused everything that happened. 

It's true that abuse changes you...it changes who you are....it changes who you become....and it changes how you move in the world. It creates shame...shame that makes you want to hide all the time....not wanting to be seen....leaving you with the belief that you're defective and have no right to exist. 

Abuse, violence.....messes up the wires in your head. It causes you to turn on yourself...to hate what and who you are; to hurt yourself with drugs, eating disorders or self-injury. And others start having control over your life....like professionals who think they know better what you need and perverts and predators who strangely sense the abuse that happened to you and see you as prey to them too....

Fighting to take my life back...to empower myself has been long and hard. Many times I wanted to give up...let go..give in. I'm glad now I didn't. And I needed His touch to help me stay alive. Sometimes I think of where I was....the things I did....the things done to me....and for a brief moment....I want to lash out and fight again. But I won't...Instead I go running...in the woods....alone....to hear His whisper....to know that maybe all that stuff had purpose....to help even one person hang on....and never give up the fight to come back to themselves and to be all they were meant to be.