Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls your life. Healing can start by letting go of regrets, forgiving those that have hurt, and learning to forgive myself. With time and courage telling my story without pain in my heart the ache in my soul and without the tears. This is how I can measure that healing process has begun. I hope to find someone who can find the beauty in my scars. I hope someone can walk through the front door every time and smile at me and who will never leave me guess as to how they feel about me. I hope to find someone who will never hesitate to love me for me for who I am and who I will become. Who doesn’t just give me piece of their time but its entirety. I hope to find someone who is my biggest supporter who is not just seeking attention but gives it in return. Fall in love with my best friend. Someone I can talk to about anything and know they’ll hold judgment. Someone who knows the darkest parts of me and loves me anyway, that knows all my flaws and loves me not in spite of them but because of them. Not someone that I can’t live without, but someone that I don’t want to live without. Someone that I want to experience all of life’s ups and downs with. Someone who will hold their hand through the worst times of my life. When they see me at my worst, when I’m broken, and they don’t run away but help me put the pieces back together. Now that is real love.

who I would like

I think everyone is deserving of love. No matter the past.  And maybe the present is complicated.  Maybe, just maybe, someone is willing to accept "complicated"  and offer solutions or to stand in the complications in hopes of moving forward into the future.  

I want  to find someone who loves me well.  By that I mean someone who will never belittle me.  Who in the heat of the argument will still be gentle, respects the fragility of life but not expects life to be broken just because we talk.  Who is patient, forgiving and apologetic.  Someone who knows their strength but doesn't use it to intimidate. Someone who knows not only where I have been and where I am but also knows  where I am headed and encourages the best parts of me.  They know what I am made of and what I am capable of, and celebrates those pieces of me.  Somebody who will love me for all the imperfections and with whom I not be made to feel guilty, Its important to remember that we are all broken at some point in our lives, that not a single person in this world is perfect and that its not fair to hold anyone to that standard.  Someone who loves deliberately and intentionally everyday.  Who is simple, compassionate,  and understanding but not just to me but with anyone from the waitress to the homeless.  That's who I want.  

climbing

I climb
and I ask myself can I do this? Is it possible?
If I climb this mountain, this huge mountain, what looks like an insurmountable mountain.... will I be done?
Oh sure close my eyes, take a deep breath, reach, step... but it doesn't take the mountain away.  it will never take the mountain way.
Because you know what happens?
I know because I climbed it.....
I stood on top after I had clawed my way to the top, scratched, bruised and exhausted and here is the secret of what is on the other side....
more mountains.
yup.
not grassy plains
no fields of flowers,
no creeks, streams or rivers,
more mountains.  rocky, jagged, with cliffs and peaks
that require more climbing and more clawing.
So I ask myself "Do I think I can do this? Is this possible?"
I ask myself every time I think about it.....  ok that sounds horrible, that sounds dramatic.  but every time an image comes across my mind and I find I can't breathe I end up asking myself those questions.  I know I'm supposed to think of my family. I know I'm supposed to think of my plans that i have in place. I know. and each week the doctor lady asks me "So how are things?"...i feel bad like Im supposed to say "Great i'm all healed. its fantastic. thanks.  i'm all good." She asked me "What do you think about the new exercise when you have these thoughts?"...Decided to answer honestly...I said "Overwhelmed.... there are allllllll these thoughts..... compared to this one little thought......its overwhelming."
I'm not sure its possible.  It seems the path from here to there, from this kind of darkness to the light, from this kind of pain to relief and joy.

corner

This is where I leave you I have no idea where I want to go. I walk around wondering if it is too late for me. I worry if I am too far gone and if I am just here to raise my daughter and I am not really here for me. I am not deserving to be here for me. I have no use for myself.  There is nothing here for me.  I was used up long ago.  I am as though just a vessel with no other purpose.  I have no goals.  I have nothing left.  I used to have something in mind. I used to know what I wanted.  I had big dreams I had things that I wanted to achieve.  Now I want to crawl into a hole. Now I want to shrivel up, I can barely breathe.  I can barely sleep.  I cannot see. 

line of demarcation

I drew that line in the sand. The wind blew. And it disappeared. I felt bad anyway. Who wants lines? Why should there be lines? Everyone tells me be the good child, be the good daughter, no lines in the sand. They know all about the lines in the sand, they should have taught me all about the lines in the sand anyway. So I should have no worries. But of course there are worries. They are them, I am me. So in this real world because of this reality that is my own… I drew a line of demarcation a year ago. I am not foolish. I realize with my family's connections they will figure out my whereabouts and I run the strong risk of them finding me and eventually contacting me in some way…. And i live with that. And so I breathe. Deep breath in slow exhale out. I know what to do if they show up. There is a plan in place. My daughter will never know them. My family is much like the mob. There were rules in the family such as: You don’t talk about what goes on in the family to anyone else, this was what I was told when I was a child. You don’t leave or go anywhere without them knowing, not as a child...or as an adult. Don’t rock the boat, Keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut. I was instructed how to behave, how to never betray the family secrets or how to remain silent. That said leaving seems almost unthinkable but somehow by those that were supposed to have taught me boundaries and lessons I learned were completely come to find out completely unreliable. So I had to learn to draw the line of demarcation to figure out the interaction on my own. Out of the blue. It struck them out like they never saw it coming. I made my own decision to protect my future. I made my decision to protect my own mental health. I decided to protect my family, be it my daughter, my future partner from the ill effects that controlled me for all my years. I was no longer going to partake in the charade that I was this daugher in this family. So there I was… standing alone. Holding my daughter's hand. We stand here we are in this world looking to make our way.

Beans

What if today was the day? The day when the book ended and a new book was opened and you were the author? What the story be? How would it end and how would the next story begin? How awesome would it be if life were to be just that simple? Forget and move on.  Be strong and resilient. And for most that is so easy and just that simple. How I wish it could be that simple. Every night. I am up late. I don't sleep. I haven't slept in years...a solid nights sleep... Only on a rare occasion can I sleep safe and sound...i cherish those night. I hold on tight and love them dearly. I'm starting to think I'm a lost cause. I mean maybe I am. I may really only be able to raise my daughter. I don't think I can recover from this inside, if my love is going to wait thinking I am going to.... I'm scared for her. Hell I'm scared for me. I can hardly breath most days. Yesterday I did have a tiny victory. I didn't run away, at a time when I normally would've. Instead of running I was mapping out routes and locations.... Yeah not a huge victory but I still didn't run, I stayed put and kept a level head. I'm trying to  meditate. I'm still not seeing any other huge wins. I don't think I'm worth a hill of beans. But hopefully I can figure out how to do this.

secret

I could never breathe a word of what was going on.  Not in private, not in trust to anyone.  I would never be able to do anything.  Besides this was love wasn’t it?  I mean, I deserved this, that’s what I was always told.  Some sort of warped world I was trapped in.  When I felt kindness or love from her i knew that it is short-lived and abuse will happen again. I would live in a constant state of hyper-awareness, watching for clues of impending abuse. I couldn’t trust her smile to be true or be one that lasted, and that was a very big deal.  I slowly lost my Self. The (and emotional or mental abuse) ate away at my soul from my inside out. I became hollow before I realized how awful my life had become. Looking back on the long hellish years, At the time I didn't know that I was being traumatized by the abuse.

My life was dictated from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep.  How I felt was not up to me.  The days became just survival, just make it through without tears, without the bad feelings.  Raise my daughter. Focus on my ex, focus my daughter, focus on the medical, focus paying the bills, focus on the house, focus on getting through.  The days would flip on a dime. Anything I wanted, Anything I needed, would not get looked at.  The yelling. The belittling. Then back to normal.  How I longed for people to move in with us.  She would act more normal around others. "You're just looking for a fight!" She tells me, and what I am doing and thinking, would even accuse me of attacking her, and then just as quickly would divert the topic to start a new problem.  Making me questions my own reality and sanity. How was I to know I was actually capable of communicating clearly when my ex didn’t seem to understand a word I said?  How could I know I was wise beyond my years when she discounted and diminished my every thought and suggestion?  How could I counter-act the words my ex used to define me when I accepted her definitions for those words? I didn’t have value because I valued her opinion over my own. I allowed my fears to be exploited and be used against me.  When I realized “Gee this is bad.  I have allowed her to change how I think and how I feel.  This is terrible.”  And when I realized that this is abusive… and is a behavior that is not going to change….I needed to end this...When I finally ended it, that shocked her. . I’ve some effects of the abuse... not just from domestic abuse but also suffered childhood trauma as well.  The doctors think that the verbal abuse is strongly associated with my chronic pain, my Fibro, frequent migraines and headaches, difficulty expressing myself, GI issues, and stress-related heart condition.  I see my counselor who believes that the psychological effects of verbal abuse include the fear and anxiety, depression, stress and PTSD, intrusive memories, memory gap disorders, sleep and eating problems, hypervigilance and exaggerated startle responses, irritability, anger issues, suicidal thoughts, self injurious behaviors. I still hear her critical voice deep in my head late at night.  The hardest part of life after emotional abuse, at least for me, is separating my internal criticism from her criticisms of me. I sometimes ask myself, “Tyne, remember what she said? You asked for this. You got it!” I am working to get rid of the thoughts without question. I am working to banish my internal criticisms too. I am my own worst enemy.  When my ex would argue with  me, she’d say I was crazy but truth is I am sane. There were times when I would question my own sanity.  I do not doubt my sanity any longer – not for one second.  After emotional abuse ended and she had left the house, I had a home that didn’t include her, the distance let me see very clearly who is crazy. And I know that it wasn’t me.  I developed depression, anxiety, sleep problems, and many hallmarks of post-traumatic stress disorder.I live in a perpetual ready, on-guard state.  I have PTSD.  I can’t believe I’m saying it but it’s a mental illness...and it  that develops after experiencing, or being exposed to, an event that physically harms or threatens to physically harm someone. This harm, or threat of harm, may be directed towards the sufferer or another individual…. That's what you get after years of torture at the hands of a loved one. PTSD symptoms include the persistent reliving of the trauma, avoidance any place that is a trauma-reminder.  I have trouble sleeping. PTSD symptoms are terrifying and life-altering, as I try to avoid any situation that may bring about severe anxiety. The avoidance unfortunately makes my world much smaller and doesn’t allow me to do fewer and fewer things as I’m afraid the re-emergence of the PTSD symptoms. What if they find me? I know they know. What if they drive by? What if they knock on my door?. Sometimes I want to numb the psychological pain caused by the symptoms. A lot of people, including me see this as just a personal weakness or character flaw and not as a real an illness, I mean it is a mental illness. It is now been proved that post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms are caused by physical changes in the brain and not due to a person's character. I’ll have to work on accepting that fact.  I always wonder how I am coming across to others because it was my ex who always misunderstood and misinterpreted my behaviors.  Now each new person I meet understands me perfectly,   I have spent so many years being told that there is something wrong with me that it is going to be a process that maybe I am not as damaged as I thought.  Don’t get me wrong I realize I have work to do and I am at peace with that but I am free. I used to look deep inside and I would dissect each incident trying to figure out where I went wrong and why I was in the situation and how to avoid it in the future. Where did I go wrong?  After I ended the 18 years I stopped searching. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t want to spend my days thinking about what could have been.  I had to look towards the future and how to raise my daughter.   I always used to live in the future. I didn’t know how to live in the now. I always looking to escape the now. So now I am trying to work on living in the present, try to take in the moments, savor what is going on….even if it is extremely unpleasant.  Aside from PTSD, and Anxiety  I also have major depressive disorder.  Medication helps to control the symptoms of that disorder.  I lived in a constant state of uncertainty. The world seems unsafe and needing protection from my family my ex reinforced and gave me protection from this while we were together….now I am on my own.  My anxiety is irrational, my heart races, my thoughts speed through my mind. I'm now really sensitive but I don’t realize what I am going to be sensitive to until it actually happens.  I feel awful that it happens. Sometimes a person’s statement or word choice will bring back a memory because they are similar to my ex’s words. That's when I’ll become very quiet. But the people I choose to have in my life are safe; I can tell her exactly what I’m feeling and she respond to me with love. The more I let myself trust, the less often I feel those stings.I am perfectly me.  I had hoped the effects of abuse would disappear after I ended the relationship. Magically. Without any work from me. But the intellectual side of me knows better.  I know it will take lots of work. And nothing, absolutely nothing will ever make what has happened in my life go away, nothing will make it disappear. Nothing will make not have happened. Nothing will make those individuals not exist in this lifetime.  And to be honest nothing can make them not come to my front door.  These are truths that exist and must be accepted.  That is my brain.  My soul on the other hand is a completely different story.  That is what is in therapy.  And for that I have no time line and for that I have no real map for and no real idea on how to navigate those waters.  Maybe my daughters dog Nemo can help me.  Be my therapy dog too.  I think he could help me too….. But turn him into a full fledge service dog.   Therapy dogs have been shown to increase endorphins–a feel-good hormone–in humans.  My thoughts…. Hmmm.  Gives me something to do! Burning Frankincense incense has been shown to help reduce anxiety too.  Hell I’ll try anything!  Ok even tea….! My counselor has me trying meditation.  I am going to do everything I can do prove them wrong. I will get through this. I think of myself  and this process as an onion – peel away layer after layer until I reconnect with the core of who I am.

 

 

.

words

tHERE ARE WORDS IN MY HEAD.sTORIES.  TRUTHS, EXPERIENCES,  hOPES AND DREAMS, NIGHTMARES AND FEARS.  oNCE UPON A TIME i WOULD WRITE THEM DOWN, i WROTE THEM ALL DOWN ON PAPER.  HOPING TO SET THEM FREE, HOPING THAT BY WRITING THEM DOWN, MY  WORDS WOULD EITHER BE SET ON FIRE, TAKE FLIGHT, OR SET SAIL.  bUT NO MATTER WHAT i WOULD HOPE TO BE FREE OF MY THOUGHTS.  jUST BY WRITING THEM DOWN. a SIMPLE JOURNAL.  nOTHING OF CONSEQUENCE, JUST A DIARY.  bUT JUST AS WE TAKE STOCK IN THAT NAIVE TRUST OF A SIMPLE BOOK THAT IS A DIARY AND THOSE AROUND US RESPECTING THOSE BOUNDARIES.  wHEN THOSE BOUNDARIES ARE BROKE AT SUCH A TENDER AGE....IS THERE ANYWAY TO COME BACK FROM THAT? dO YOU?sO MANY YEARS SINCE THEN, SO MANY MILES,

belief

I believe in falling in love with your best friend. 

Someone you can talk to about anything  knowing they’ll hold no judgement. Someone who knows the darkest parts of you and loves you anyway.  

Knows your flaws and loves you in spite of them. Not thinking they are going to change you.

I believe in falling in love you  not with someone that you can’t live without, but someone that you don’t want to live without. 

I believe in falling in love someone that you want to experience all of life’s ups and downs with.   

Someone wont leave your side during those times. 

I believe in falling in love with someone who will hold your hand through the worst times of your life.  

Someone who sees you at your worst, when you’re broken, and they don’t run away they in fact help put the pieces back together, making the picture even more beautiful than it was before.

 Now that’s real love.