Fight To Win

"Try fighting with your head for a change ... it's a good one, even if it does resist learning.' Atticus Finch 

Friends tell me....when I get something in my head....I grab on....and never let go.  I always thought....it's because I'm just focused. But now....I think.....it's more that I learned to be a fighter...I learned to fight to get what I want....pushing back...never giving up.....holding on....

Having a goal....kicks in the fight....and in some strange way...energizes me. I feel pumped...geared up....and that thing that drives me becomes the only thing I think about. 

In the past....I used all my energy to fight against what I didn't want.....fighting to survive whatever stuff was going on.  That fighter mentality still kicks in...and is still very much a part of me. 

I don't think it's a bad thing like I used. I try to use it now to fight differently.....to fight to win...not just for myself....but for others too....

At one time.....I fought dirty....using my body in any way I could to achieve what I needed. Now.....I've found my voice and I'm learning to use my words....focusing that fight in me to battle for positive changes and make a difference in my world and maybe in the lives of others. 

I never thought what I had to say was important...but since publishing my book....and having had so many people read it and tell me my words inspired and gave hope and showed nothing is impossible to overcome.....I know now I have a write (right) to be heard...and a right to my voice. 

Speak up

"When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak." Audre Lorde 

     My older sister tells me things I've forgotten. She has told me I never talked as a kid. When someone asked me a question, I wouldn't answer - I would look to her. Relatives thought I was excessively shy. - Maybe some even thought something was wrong with me. 
     I didn't speak. I was too afraid. In school.....I never talked. When a teacher asked me a question - I didn't answer. I couldn't. One teacher told me I was the saddest child she had ever seen. 

     I don't remember being sad. I remember being angry. Very angry. Angry at me. Angry for being stupid - for not being able to talk - for not speaking - for not standing up for myself....Angry at me because I believed my parents were right....I was stupid, worthless, garbage. I failed in school. Everything. I lived in my own world - alone - lost - holding my breath - trying hard to be invisible....to not be seen.  


    I kept secrets. Lost of them. Secrets that hurt me and I would find out later, that also hurt others. I didn't believe I had the right to talk. If I tried to say something...I was told I didn't make any sense. 


    Being silent seemed easier...It wasn't. Silence crippled me - it made me feel different. It made me angry at me. - I held everything inside....then I took it all out on myself; shooting dope, throwing up, cutting myself.


     Over time I learned I need my words. I need them to express what I feel....what I need....what I want. Having my voice...being heard.... gives me a sense of freedom. But....
     ....it's easier for me to stand up for others than for myself. And I still wonder if what I think makes any sense. In a group I'm still afraid to say anything. When I do, the words seem far away...like they're not a part of me.  
      I want to speak....to tell the truth....to tell my story, to maybe make a difference in the life of someone else. 

     This week there was an article in the paper about a nineteen year old girl held in prison for minor acting out behaviours. She had a problem with hurting herself. The guards....the professionals decided to ignore her.....even when they watched her... in her cell, make a noose with a piece of clothing, place it around her throat and pull it tight. The officials said, Don't help her. Leave her alone. She died. Only nineteen. Why? Because someone felt her self-harm needed to be controlled and she needed to be taught a lesson.

That girl needed compassion....She needed understanding. I don't know if she was raped, molested, beaten.....Something was wrong for her to have wanted to hurt herself. And she didn't belong in prison. She hadn't hurt anyone. Just herself. Now she's dead. Why? 

     I remember the professionals who tried to control me. They ended up hurting me, not helping me. I want to speak. I want my voice to be heard.I want to speak out. Speak up. Make a difference.


     I'm working on finding my voice and speaking up. When I'm alone in the woods....when I hear Him whisper in my heart...encouraging me....I wonder if that's why He let me live...to tell.....

The Voice of the Heart

"Words are the voice of the heart." Confucius

I thought I was bad, wrong, unworthy of anything good....Over and over my parents called me garbage, idiot, stupid. They told me I was worthless and deserved nothing. They ridiculed everything about me - the way I walked - the way I talked - and what I did. I believed what they said. Their words became the voice of my heart. I lived them. I ran on them.

The power of their words led me into situations that almost killed me. The power of their words took me down a path of self-destruction. They became ingrained in my spirit. They became a part of who I was. I couldn't shake them.

I didn't know they were lies. I had heard them so often I accepted them as truth.

I think words have energy - a power in them that can lift beyond what I think I'm capable of or they can bring me to down to the lowest edge of life.

My parent's words took me deep into darkness - drugs, eating disorder, self-harm. They led me into dangerous situations - situations like being held and raped. Their words became the fuel for my self-hatred, the fuel that drove me to descend deeper and deeper into pain.

Somehow though, God broke through the darkness. I learned the words my parents had told me were lies. Lies that had become so cemented inside me I couldn't shake free of them. Even though I knew they were lies they continued to gnaw at me, tearing at me inside until I had to rip my arms or throw up to relieve their pull to tear me down.

Those words have been the hardest to fight - the hardest to overcome.

Words - I want to be careful to use my words to speak kindness, gentleness and peace. I want to be careful to use my words to empower others and to never tear down anyone or make them feel less than who they are.

My Voice

"Words are the voice of the heart." Confucious

I never talked. I never told. I never said the things that happened. Instead I hid - overwhelmed with shame, wondering if all those awful things even happened at all. I used to talk in the third person - almost as if I was speaking for someone else and not for myself. I lived as if I wasn't a part of myself - Separate. Detached.

This blog has become my voice. It's given me the freedom to write what I can't say - to put a 'voice' to the memories that play in my head like old reruns that have kept me cowering in shame, - terrified to be seen.

When I sit at my computer and type - I feel free. It kind of feels like running in the woods. I can say what I want. I can say the truth. I can be honest. No one's looking at me.

My book is finished. My writer friend edited the whole thing. She said she was entralled. She said I'll touch many lives. She told me she's proud of me for writing it. My other friend, my best friend, gave my name to some local churches to speak at in the fall. The fall is too far away for me to worry about right now, but I hope I can stand up and have people look at me and tell the truth of what happened.

This morning I went for a run. I listened for God's voice. His voice gives me courage. This morning, I heard, 'trust.' One word. One powerful word. I believe He led me to write. He brought some amazing people to help me including some of you on the blog. I'm grateful, really grateful.

I want my voice to be heard. I don't want to be silent anymore. I want to help other people find peace and freedom. Maybe my story will give them that.

Taking A Stand

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controvery." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Taking a stand and speaking out when we see or hear an injustice being done takes courage. It's not easy to get involved, to have our voice - it's so much easier to walk away; to kid ourselves into believing we didn't see, we didn't hear, we didn't really know.......

Whether it's standing up for the rights of a child to be free from harm, or a nation to be free from unjust rule, or a cause that we know we cannot look away from - taking a stand tells the world we will not be silent, we will not allow wrong to be be perpertrated - whatever the cost to ourselves.

I have struggled recently with family members who knew my sister and I were being abused. They said they didn't know how bad it was, but they admitted they were terrified or our father and that many times they pulled our mother off us when she was beating us so badly. And finally they said, "we didn't want to interfere in someone else's family problems." So they walked away and left. Left us to fend for ourselves against adults who bullied and terrorized us.

Then they said we should have asked for help. They blamed us. They said we didn't reach out. It's hard for me to understand their reasoning. We were children who had no voice. They said I was quiet, that I never talked, never spoke. I had no words. No voice. How could I have asked for help?

To protect myself, I tried to disappear, first in my head, then through drugs, throwing up and cutting myself. I willed myself to not be present. Once, while at the park, it started raining. I ran to the store to look for my sister. She wasn't there. I ran back to the park. Everyone had left. Alone in the rain, thunder and lightening, I ran home. As soon as I got in the house, my mother attacked me - punching, kicking and slapping me. She put her hands around my throat and two of my aunts grabbed her and pulled her off. I slipped away and made it to the bathroom, locking the door. I dropped to the floor, soaking wet. Her screams filtered through the door. I closed my eyes and forced myself to pull away in my mind until I couldn't hear her anymore.

I became lost. I never talked. Teachers told me I was the saddest child they had ever seen. But nobody did anything. Nobody helped.

When God wrapped His gentleness around me, poured out His love - I knew I needed to be a voice for those who had no voice. I couldn't do what my relatives had done, look the other way and walk away from anyone experiencing any form of injustice or cruelty.

I went back to school. Got my degree. For all the drugs I did, the many times my head was bashed against the wall, for all the times I was called stupid, retarded, garbage, an idiot, I somehow managed to get on the Dean's Honor List.

God empowered me. He gave me my life back, then my voice. I will never keep silent again. I will stand up and speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. I will not turn away. I will be a voice for the vulnerable, the weak and those unable to stand up for themselves. I want to make a difference, regardless of the cost to myself. With Him in my corner, I will not be silent anymore.