I posted a long post on my blog, bearing out half my soul (and story) and wanted to invite you to come read and leave your feeback, if and when you can...
my story
Thanx and love
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Also, for those who haven't already gone and commented, please comment here instead.
This is a safer place for me right now. I shared what I was ready to there at this point. I had to delete a couple comments there for privacy reasons I can't get into right now (but I kept them all in my e-mail box). I REALLY appreciated every comment and was in no way offended by anything you wrote. In fact, I was really encouraged, and thankful to share and get your feeback! I should have just asked for you to comment here in the first place... sorry
Thanks again
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A safe place to have a cookie, get a hug, and cry if you need to.
Welcome to the Breakfast Nook
I rather think that the kitchen of an innkeeper wrongfully accused by history of being a harlot would be a safe place to lay down my burdens and sorrows. I believe she would have a willing and patient ear, a compassionately forgiving heart, a nonjudgemental spirit, and the grace that can only come from enduring thousands of years of slander. I also think that, if I would like to talk to anyone about Jesus, it would be this grandma more than any other person in history.
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10 comments:
How do I get to your blog?
It's
http://graced-all-over.blogspot.com
I understand not wanting specifics on your blog site. I do that a lot too. Much love, Michelle
I get that. I'm actually toying with the idea of starting up a completely incognito blog so I can just talk about everything.
But then I think, why do I need to tell the world everything? Is it not enough to journal it anymore? It feels weird to me. And so I don't think I will. I think I will just resist the urge to blog about my entire existence - there's a thought! LOL
Or I'll come here.
Thanks for understanding and relating Michelle and Sue!!!
I feel exactly like you do, Sue- "Is it not enough to journal it anymore?"
For me, sometimes it's enough and sometimes I need more. Maybe I need to go back to "therapy" because talking it out helps and I definately don't want the whole world to know all my innermost thoughts. I don't think we were created for that; not while we're on this world, anyway. Plus, when you've been abused things can feel even more unsafe because of the whole vulnerability thing. What I mean is being vulnerable is even more scary to those of us who have been abused. Even if we are brave and very vulnerable, we then have to deal with the after-effects, like-- "gosh, did I just set myself up" or, "who's gonna come cut me down now", etc, etc. It's scary. But i'm really sleep deprived right now and I'm not sure how coherent I'm being.
Pray for me, because in sharing part of my story. Although initially it was not too hard to hit "post" and the thing pretty much wrote itself, which was very surprising to me cause I had sat down to write a rant about disfunctional families, I do feel "raw" and it's been a bit painful in some ways...
thanks XO
oh Sue- "I think I will just resist the urge to blog about my entire existence - there's a thought! LOL"
LOL! :)
Hey Manu,
I think that whole "who is gonna come down on me now?" is a really big one for people who have suffered some sort of trauma. I don't even know if much of it is all that conscious for me, which of course is stressful because if it's mainly unconscious, it's probably affecting me even more than I realise.
I don't know if I will be able to be coherent here (your thoughts were certainly coherent) because I feel like I have a whole stack of thoughts going on in my head at the moment, so bear with me :)
I have been thinking a lot about this lately, because of what has been going on with me recently. A family member has been staying on and off for the past six weeks. This was someone who "messed" with me when I was 11 years old. I don't call it rape because it wasn't forceful or violent ... at least, not in the external physical sense. Which is probably harder to deal with in some respects, I suppose. Anyway, so he has been staying with me off and on for six weeks. I thought I could cope with it because what happened was a long time ago, and basically because I am way stronger than him physically and emotionally, and have my shit together a whole lot more, and own my shit to boot. So I thought I could cope with it, even though it disrupted me, even though I haven't played with any clay since he started turning up. I didn't realise how disruptive in my soul it all felt until I started looking at my creativity as an outward sign and realised that I just can't be creative when he is around. Making art is a relatively new thing for me, and it requires safety. That's the thing I have started realising recently - how unsafe I feel. Being in that situation where the person who abused you is violating your boundaries by just turning up when they feel like it, with some sort of sense of entitlement because you are a family member ... well, it's kind of done my head in, I have to say. Got the anger fuelled. Boy, did it get the anger fuelled. I was so furious when he turned up unannounced after I had EXPRESSLY told him to call me first to see if it would be alright. For fuck's sake, does he not understand how important it would be for me to have my boundaries? No, I guess not. I don't suppose he has given due consideration to that sort of thing because it would require him taking more responsibility for himself. But anyway, I digress ...
All of this massive long-windedness to say, I have been feeling the reverb over this past week. Feeling so unsafe in my own house. This feeling of unsafety keeps popping up all the time. Feeling like setting boundaries is a really important thing for me to do to get healthier, get more energy, just to start feeling more the space between where I end and other people begin, you know? I think this is a massive thing for those of us who have been abused.
I would love to discuss this further, because I have been thinking about it a lot in a Christian context - how do we become people who are not only safe for others to be around, but safe for ourselves to be around? There has been so much abuse in Christian circles in the past in this area. Sometimes I look at the Church and think how pathetically dysfunctional it has been over the past 100 years, just like a dysfunctional family with the same fucked-up dynamics. I am still struggling with how to live a life lived outward - how to live loved, and to live loving others. And yet, how to live that in a way which keeps ourselves "safe", so that, being vulnerable, we can guard ourselves in the ways that maybe our abuse has taught us not to?
Anyway, I thnk maybe I have gone off topic a bit from what you were saying. I just had to get all of that out first, but I would love to keep talking about this. It's just kinda a bit important, methinks!
Thanks for sharing and dialoguing...
It's so therapeutic, like you said, to get it out in a safe place (even though it's hard to feel safe after being vulnerable, when you've been abused)
Geez, it totally makes sense to me that you've been struggling like you have the last several weeks, under the circumstances!!! That would be immensely hard and I, for one, don't think he has the right to impose on you like that...!!!
It's so hard for me (and I suppose all abuse survivors)to set or maintain boundaries, because it feels so unkind. It's like I'm responsible for everyone's happiness?! (it's perhaps this knee-jerk reaction of not wanting anyone to suffer like I have, so I over-compensate?) Father has been chipping away that pressure off of me, but I still struggle...
This is a very important topic. I'm with you on the whole dysfunctional church thing too!!! You know I am!!!
Yes, well, Manu, the women in my family have enabled my brother all his life, so of course he expects that I am going to do so as well. Well, sorry, 'about that but no more.
I was thinking earlier after reading somewhere else about someone who has been putting up walls. I was thinking about how difficult it is to work out what are walls and what are boundaries. And the Church has been less than helpful about that in the past. I remember Lou saying a few weeks ago to me something that has been reverberating in my head. She said that Shane Claiborne's intentional community had a sign hanging over the front door that basically said something like "If you can't do it in love, don't answer the door." I think that is an important thing for abused people, and a dysfunction the Church has indulged in too.
Yeah, there is a big difference between walls and boundaries isn't there?! The IC has really blurred the picture for so many and it's wounding, confusing and damaging! (been there! And now glad to be on the recovering end) Thanks for sharing this wisdom.... and about the sign...!
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