Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A time for everything

A Time for Everything-Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (NIV)   1 There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: As we walk through this life what are we looking for? Acceptance? Completion? Other human beings will always fail us, always hurt us, and always let us down, but there is One who won’t.   2 a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, We always are congratulating, excited, and in awe when someone gives birth…as the child grows older most lose their fascination with that child and what is cute. Why is that? Those children become jaded because of us. A child has an insurmountable amount of faith when they are young…we end up squeezing it out of them as a society. A time to die. It is so hard to deal with death of a loved one, whether family or friends, it is so hard to say goodbye. As days go on I stop, much more than I ever use to, and look around me. Amazed at what God has created, and saddened by the signs that sat...

Life as I knew it....

Lost. Confused. Hurt. So many emotions that have consumed most of my life, and have become again intensely prevalent in the last year. When I re-read my journals, writings, posts….I see a trend. I see the problems, but nothing changes. I can’t say I have not grown, matured, and learned the patterns, but there are still the same themes. Love. It is elusive, self-serving, and ambiguous to me. I don’t know if that will ever change, and it scares me. It may sound trivial to many, but when it is not afforded to you as a young child, it does affect your ability to grasp the complexity of it, and create healthy relationships. 2016, like 1983, changed the course of my life. 2016 was a year of a 20 year marriage ending. 2016 was a year of losing the last of familial relationships, I thought I might have. 2016 was a year of my 4 beautiful children experiencing excruciating pain and the broken illusion of a happy family. I would be lying if I said I have not felt like I was the worse failure...

Moving on...

“ You have to know the past to understand the present.”- Dr. Carl Sagan What am I so afraid of? That emptiness that eats at me…gnaws at my very core everyday…what will make it go away? I still have those moments when I feel like my heart has been ripped out, stomped on, and put through the blender. It takes so much effort sometimes to compartmentalize all the different feelings & emotions that my mind just decides to shut down, and go numb. My faith is the only thing that keeps dragging me back out of the pit. I overanalyze everything. I try not to, but it is a character defect that I have to continue to work on. I had so little control over my past that I hate to release any form of control now, even though I know realistically, I have no say in certain things anyway! I want so badly to make a difference…to know my purpose, but I feel like it constantly evades me. Like a hamster on a wheel. I get so frustrated when I try so hard to be honest & true to all of my shortcomin...