Changes

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.  Anatole France

In so many ways....I have become free. The shame and fear mostly gone....blogging has given me a voice...a voice that was heard and affirmed by you guys. Your constant affirmations have given me something so huge....it's made me feel like I don't need to hide as much.  My biggest fear has always been being known.....being seen. I  know I'm not quite where I should be...but I'm not where I was. I want to be free not to worry about being seen.....especially when someone knows my past...what happened....how far down I had fallen and what I did to survive..

I held onto the secrets too long and allowed the shame to cripple me. I'm accepting more and more that I'm not what happened to me.....but I know it has shaped who I have become and how I see things.  

I never what to take anyone's dignity away from them. I never want to reduce anyone to feeling less than human like those professionals who did that to me....who medicalized my response to being beaten and raped. When I didn't cooperate with what they said I 'should' do, they took it as a message that I didn't want help. And they labeled me and saw the destructive behaviour as my being unwillingly to be free. 

I've learned that cutting, eating disorders and the needle were only symptoms of what was going on inside...and they were also my way of surviving what happened.

I want to keep moving forward...reaching for life....learning to live it fully. I still struggle to let myself enjoy life....to touch and feel and experience the good without feeling guilty or believing I don't have the right. I've come this far...I'm determined to climb higher....I want my life to shine with hope that nothing is impossible to overcome.