NO, looking back.

"Nobody gets to live life backward. 
Look ahead that is where your future lies." Ann Landers

Isn’t that the truth? We spend so much time in the past that we don’t see what is right in front of us! I know that I have spent much of my life doing just that. When I ponder why I do it, I am sad that it is because that is where I am most comfortable! That is all I know or rather all I have known. I know different now, but old habits die-hard.

There are those that don’t understand survivors of abuse or individuals that battle addiction. In their eyes it is clear-cut. Leave the abuser (if you are an adult) or quit using. If it were so simple, would there even be an epidemic of mass proportion that we deal with in this day and age? Most of the time the abused & some form of addiction go hand and hand.

There is absolutely nothing easy about breaking out of the chains that bind you, no matter what those chains are. People that don’t understand need to take a step back, and walk a day in the shoes of the oppressed. We all have opinions and believe we know what we would do in a situation that we look at, but trust me, you have no idea until it is sitting right in front of you.

There are those also who have no idea what it feels like to stand in a room full of people and feel so alone. When I am in pain, I tend to withdraw and go inward. It is not a good place, but the fear and my untrusting nature push me into solitude. Is that the way to live? Absolutely not. That is where I become my most self-destructive.

Life is a journey. Sometimes a journey that is more pain than it is joy, but one thing I have to continue to remind myself is that no matter what anyone does to me I control what I do and how I think. No one can take my peace unless I allow them to. It is so hard and painful, more so than not, but I look to the day when I no longer have to fight the self-sabotage and realize I am worth so much more.

Until then….I will keep on trudging along & doing my best to make a difference in those that are still suffering. I am an adult now, and I feel it is my job to try and fight for those that are still living in silence due to the fear of their oppressor. We need to band together as survivors and fight these demons that are destroying our own.