Doubting

" Trust Yourself." Benjamin Spock

These last few months, I've been really focused - strong - confident - about telling my story. I didn't start writing to put this into book form. It somehow evolved - people started telling me I need to tell...I need to tell what happened. 

I began writing in April '08. I was sitting at the computer wondering what happened to the rapist. Nothing came up when I googled his name, but someone knew him and asked me to call her. She told me things I had forgotten....things I didn't want to hear - didn't want to remember. Then strangely, I connected with the rapist's son....Other things started happening....reminders...people, the suicide of the rapist's son....my sister returning from living overseas, forcing me to listen..I felt sick. I had never told. I wrote. All hours of the day and into the night....I wrote. Everyday I ran alone in the woods, in the hills wanting to run from the memories. It felt like it was happening all over again. There were days I wanted to get in my car, close my eyes and drive. I kept writing. I met this writer. She told me 'start a blog.' I did. The blog became my voice. I wrote for me. I wrote those things I could never say out loud. Then I realized people were reading what I wrote. You guys affirmed me. You believed me. Everytime I hit post, I waited for someone to tell me they didn't believe me. You always did. 


I got stronger....Sometimes I needed to say the same things a few times - I didn't believe the words I wrote. I kept reading and rereading.....I didn't understand at the time, but doing that helped me connect to myself...to what happened. I needed to believe me. And something else...the shame that had lived inside me was starting to leave. I could look people in their eyes. I couldn't do that before.


These last two weeks, a lot of strange things have been happening. I couldn't access the website I started for the book...the publisher called and said the printer broke down - they have to wait for a part...the editor didn't assess the margins right making the words too close to the spine. - Through all of this I've stayed confident. The desire to help, to give back motivated me. 


But tonight - I was going to post something entrirely different and then it hit me, are these signs that I shouldn't go through with this? Doubts are filling my head.  People in my world will know the awfulness of what happened. Someone at work who I respect and who respects me heard about the book and wants to read it. I told him I'm afraid he'll judge me. He said he never will. 


I'm afraid. I hope I'm doing the right thing.

Refusing Fear

"Fear is only as deep as the mind allows." Japanese Proverb
I drove to work this morning with the song, "  How can you say there is no God...  playing around in my head. All morning that tune played over and over  inside me. I felt like I could fly. By the time I left work, I had so much energy I needed some way to release it. I drove to the mountains where I love to run. The air, the smells, the sights - being in nature - made me feel even more pumped.

Before I had left work, a friend told me she's concerned I run alone in the woods. I hit the trails and started running. Her words popped into my head. I started to feel afraid - afraid to run in the place I love. I kept running through the isolated wooded trails, but I became aware of a growing sense of not being safe - of the possiblity someone evil was lurking behind the trees, on the trails, waiting - I felt that familiar sense of needing to brace my body, to be on guard, watching, attuned to every sound, every movement......It was too much. I was really afraid. I turned around and headed back to my car. I hate that as a female, we never feel really safe in the world.

Fear - I don't want to live being afraid. I don't want to be restricted in what I do or don't do just because I'm too afraid. I do that a lot. I'm still afraid to be seen. I still find it easier to talk in the darkness. I'm still afraid of people knowing the real me, how bad things had been - so I keep a distance - And I'm still afraid of being alone in the dark -
Fear - it has a life of its own. It drives, it pushes, it picks up steam the more I feed it with wild crazy thoughts from my imagination. 
Fear - it cripples, it stops me from living my best life, from doing the things I really want to do.  And it forces me to accept situations I don't want.
I never used to admit I was afraid. Instead I forced myself to be brave, to look fearless - by shoving needles in my arms, or throwing up or cutting myself. I never cried - instead I fought - mostly myself - to stay strong - to not show weakness - to not show fear.  


Fear - someone once told me it's the opposite of faith. I want to walk in faith - faith that I can do anything I want. Faith that has a positive strength to it. 
Faith that can stand up and speak and not be afraid. Faith that can look fear  head on and not back down.  
I know I need to be careful - to not put myself in crazy situations. Maybe running in the woods alone isn't so smart. I need to really think about that. Other fears - fears that control me - I want to challenge them and become freer. 

Fear and Perspective

 "Courage is not the absense of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." Ambrose Redmoon

The other day I took my kids walking along the water. A snake slithered in front of us - I screamed. My youngest jumped in my arms. My oldest cracked up laughing. 

To her it was 'just' a harmless garter snake. To me and my youngest - it was huge, disgusting - terrifying. For the rest of the walk my youngest and I moved cautiously - terrified of meeting another slimy snake. My oldest kept laughing and trying to convince us we were just being goofy. 

I got home and thought about my fears. I've been so afraid to tell anyone about the stuff that happened to me. I've been afraid to speak. Afraid to be seen. Afraid of the memories. Some days I want to scream at myself - 'who cares. It's over. I survived.' Other times, I'm convinced people will look at me differently and think something's wrong with me to have been where I've been.


I kept silent for a long time. Afraid. Worrying what others would think. Living in shame. Not wanting anyone to know. Not wanting to admit it was bad - lying even to myself. 


This year I felt God shaking me....... shaking me into reality. Things happened. I connected with people. People who knew. Some said they were shocked I had survived the drugs, the streets - living life on the edge. God forced me to face the truth. The truth of what happened. The truth of how bad it had gotten - the truth of where I had been .....how far down He had reached to pull me out.

  
I started writing. Mostly to get rid of the images in my head.  I had minimized it  - kept telling myself it was no big deal. But the shame....the shame consumed me. I couldn't be with people long. I couldn't let anyone look in my eyes.


I went to talk to a physician friend. I told her everything....in the dark...my words faltering...hesitating....broken. I couldn't look at her. Worse - I couldn't have her look at me. You should be dead she told me. You need to tell your story. Her words shocked me. For so long I didn't believe it even happened....I thought I made it up.



Listening to her ....and writing - I started feeling selfish, selfish that I never told.....

God had touched me. He had broken chains that I couldn't get free of. Nothing had worked, not jail, not hospitals, not rehab.......Then He touched me.....in a hospital...under oxygen.... He freed me from the drugs. Just like that. 


I promised Him I would tell whoever He wants - so others can have hope - to know there's a way - But.....


I'm still afraid to be seen, to speak in front of people. I keep thinking about that snake....my daughter's persepective versus mine. 


I don't know how I'm going to tell.....but I will. He gave me life. I owe Him.


     

Fear

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do." Eleanor Roosevelt

Fear. I hate it. Most of the time I don't even know why I am afraid.

Like these past few days. We we're getting ready to go away. I want to go. The place we picked is beautiful - it's up north in the mountains - a fun place with lakes, sports, cool shops, tons of fun. But I'm afraid to leave home. I'm driving myself crazy. Want to go - don't want to go - want to go - have to go. Kids are excited.

What's wrong with me? This happens so often. Before we went to disney last January, I agonized about going for weeks. Everyone was excited but I had this overwhelming fear. I dreaded going. We went. It was great fun.

It's weird. I think I'm afraid to leave home. Fear is just as bad as shame. It cripples and it clouds my thinking.

I'm going in spite of the fear. I'm going because I know it's a good thing and I can't disappoint my girls.

Someone once told me fear is the opposite of faith. I think that's true. When I think of fear and faith, I think of them being similiar to a positive and negative magnet. When you try to bring them together they repel each other.

I can't live in fear and faith at the same time. I am so tired of being afriad. I choose faith. Even if my stomach is filled with crazy butterflies - I choose to trust. I choose to go.

Changes

"I have accepted fear as a part of life..... specifically the fear of change. I have gone ahead despite the pounding in my heart that says: turn back.... Erica Jong

I hate change. Even when it's good change.

We've moved to the new place. - I know I like it. I love the quiet, being surrounded by animals, woods and water - the neighbours are great. A few have warmly welcomed us, some even jumping in wanting to give us a hand.

Everything is different here - the layout of the rooms, the appliances, even the shower in the ensuite is on the opposite side to our old house. Things still need to be set up. Boxes are everywhere. I can't find some things I want. We still need to buy some furniture.

And I want to go running, but I don't know the woods around here. Where we were, I knew them really well and always felt safe but here I don't know the trails. I need to run. I need to run in the quiet of the woods. It calms me. It gives me a sense of safety. I don't know if these woods are as safe as the ones I ran in. I feel afraid. It's all so new.

Change. I hate it. Even when I know what I'm moving towards is better.
Why am I afraid? Something inside me just wants the familiar. And it's not like we've moved that far away from where we were. The day we moved, it was so hot, but I had to run. I went back to run in the familiar woods. I needed to quiet the fear inside me. I needed to hear God whisper, it's ok.

My heart tells me, trust. Don't be afraid. The little kid inside me feels like things are somewhat out of control. I think of some of the places I've been in my life. This is heaven compared to those places. I'm trying to breathe, to trust, to let go and know God never leads us where He knows we can't handle it. Maybe today I'll venture out in these woods.

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.