I have been thinking about this for a while now. My life has changed so much over the last 5 years. I look back and am shocked at the abuse I took on a daily basis. At that time in my life I had been through so much severe abuse that I was happy to being in a relationship that was less abusive. By less, I mean I was not getting beaten every day, just once in a while. I was still taking abuse and I still lived as if I deserved it. What has changed? What makes me think that I had no idea what abuse was? I am now in a totally abusive free place for the first time in my life. I am free from abuse from anyone in my life and from myself as well. For so long if I was not with someone who abused me I would find ways to abuse myself, be it physically, mentally or emotionally, and at times even sexually.
So what changed? I began to value myself. I began a relationship with God. I struggled to understand a love so deep that one would give their only son to die for it. I began daily conversations with Him and acting as if he was right there with me. I struggled to clean up my addictions, and to deal with the feelings and the questions as they arose. Feelings of shame and guilt and remorse. Fear, sadness and loss. I stood on His promises to be there for me.
Questions like, there has got to be more to life than being clean and sober? I started hanging out with other people going the same way. Not everyone was as serious as me but at least they were not in active addiction. I started practicing what I was learning. I started doing for others. I found wonderful ways to get out of myself and give to others through volunteering and helping where ever I could. I spent three years, dealing with physical feelings from memories and past abuse, in pain to the point of immobility, knowing and believing that this to would pass. At times, I knew that without doing for others I would never be able to do this for myself. At times the only reason I stayed clean and moving ahead was because of my commitment to my volunteer work and the responsibility I had committed to. After a while doing this I could see a difference. I was moving ahead. the time of self pity and neglect had passed. I no long hung around people who were grossly abusive but I still didn't see some of the abuse as it is subtle. I still let my X come and stay at my home, living off of me and the kids, because of the guilt I felt about leaving. I still paid for his drugs to keep the peace. I still let my older children talk disrespectfully to me and of me, because of the quilt I felt for not being a very good mother for them. I still abused myself, by over loading my plate with responsibility as if I had to make up for lost time. I still beat myself up mentally for being Bi-Polar. I still dated men who used me as an object and never cared for me as a person.
So now what? I was finding a voice, to be able to share some of the progress. I started attending a church. God was becoming more and more a stable point in my life. I was growing faith. The ability to believe that He would complete that which He had started. God was consistently putting people in my life to assist me, people on the internet who encouraged and supported me and valued me. People in my church who showed me what true Christian love can be like. Without the guilt and expectations I had experienced as a child in church. I was beginning to understand LOVE. For all to long love was such a negative thing. Love was pain and sorrow and dirty. Love was sexual. love was for the lucky. Love was an oxymoron. Love was bitter sweet, but mostly bitter. Today through the grace of God I know real love. Not he convoluted love of my pedophile father and abusive battering mother, but the love of children of God. The ones who love just to love. They loved me until I could love myself. For the first time in my life it is okay to tell someone you love them. I don't have to do things i don't want to do to be loved. Imagine that. I also am not as afraid that saying I love you means I will be stocked or abused in some way. I now understand God's mercy and love is infinite.
I am now in a place I have never been before, ever, a place without abuse. I am so looking forward to sharing and growing and discovering what God has in store. I so want this for each of you. I wish you all the faith of a mustard seed, as it can move mountains.:) Go with God.
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