I believe in miracles.
Not the rock your world, holy saints and rising apparitions kind of miracles. But rather, the light shifting, change your life, in this moment kind of miracle that takes you by the hand and guides you home. The kind of miracle that awakens you to the truth that this moment is all you’ve got. The kind of miracle that says, grab me and run with me or lose the miracle of your life forever.
I know about miracles like that. I got one on a sunny May morning five years ago when I had given myself up for dead. Well, not dead-dead, but rather, the walking breathing dead kind of living that leeches all energy from your body and leaves you without hope of ever finding a way back to the land of the living.
My miracle appeared in the form of a blue and white police car driving up and arresting the sociopath who had been lying and cheating and manipulating and abusing me for the length of our four year nine month relationship.
When first we’d met I thought his name was Prince Charming. I loved the view of the short cut to happiness he promised me and jumped onto the runaway train of his promises of happily ever after. I never expected to find myself lost in hell, in cahoots with the Prince of Darkness and praying for a miracle I didn’t believe I deserved, to set me free.
But then, that’s the funny thing about miracles. They don’t come looking for believers. They just appear, like stars in a darkened sky coming out at night. It’s not that they weren’t there all along, it’s just lost in the pit of despair, we lose sight of the miracles around us. Too frightened to open our eyes in the blinding light of day, we shut out the world and crawl into the cave of desperation, shutting ourselves off from belief and hope and possibility and even miracles.
It was a miracle the police found us. He was hiding out, trying to escape the country, and I was hiding behind the smile I’d pasted on my face, pretending to be the person he told me to be, or else. The miracle saved me from finding out what the ”˜or else’ might be.
Looking back, it was a miracle I was still alive. I had seventy-two cents in my pocket, a few clothes and my beautiful Golden Retriever, Ellie, who had travelled that rocky road beside me, faithfully keeping step to my faltering footsteps as I travelled further and further from life as I knew it.
I don’t know who said this, but I find it very powerful, “Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become.”
On that day in May, five years ago, I knew I didn’t get a miracle to live in pain and sorrow. I knew I got the miracle to live in joy. But, in the process of losing myself on the road to hell, I had become someone I didn’t recognize, someone I didn’t love. I knew I had to change. I feared I didn’t know how.
Change is always possible. Ending something that isn’t working for me requires me to change what I’m doing. When I awoke from that relationship, there was very little that was working in my life. So much was broken, so much was in disarray.
To change my life, I had to surrender my disease and embrace my ability to heal. To heal, I had to change the anger into forgiveness. The sorrow into laughter. The hatred into love. I had to let go of who I had become on that journey and fall into love with who I could become in healing by letting go of my fear of falling and learning how to fly free from the pain of the past.
And so, on that morning in May when my world changed and I began to see there was light beyond the darkness, I grabbed my miracle and set out to recover my joy. Step by step. Moment by moment. And, in the process I uncovered the greatest miracle of my life. Me.
I believe in miracles. I am one.
The question is: What do you believe in? Do you believe you’re some big cosmic experiment gone awry in one hopelessly lost human being, or a miracle of life, unique and magnificent, a shining example of the best of human being, full of possibilities, endlessly in love with the wonder and the miracle of being you?
I guess I just want to have peace within myself and it just isn’t inside of me. Years ago when I was 16, I was living with an abusive boyfriend, (long story) anyway, he had hit me in the face leaving bruises. I went to my mom’s house, which should have been my house..the first thing she said was, “What did you do to deserve it?”
Now, years have past and my mom is a very good person and we have a very good relationship. That being said, to this day, that haunts me and I think a part of me still believes I deserve what I get.
For instance, a couple of years ago I became and advocate for alternatives to violence, after a year, I dropped out. My thinking was, if I can’t help myself, how in the hell can I help anyone else. Which when I first started my thinking was, I can’t help myself so maybe I can help other people. Go figure. Now I just want to be happy but I have no idea what is holding me back.
I do want with all my heart to be free from all the self destruction, I don’t want to be like this anymore
I do have good days, but more often than not, empty days and I just don’t know what to think or do. I go to work and do the things I have to, but other than that I have removed myself from everything. I used to be a people person and now I am not so much.
I guess I keep hoping every day that tomorrow will be the day I wake up and things will be just peachy. I can say I am healed, happy, healthy and present.
rperk,
It sounds to me as if you are clinically depressed. Both as a clinician (treating others for depression before my retirement) and as a patient, I can tell you that DEPRESSION is a chemical/hormonal imbalance in our brain that is EASILY treated with medication as a start.
Believe me, being on the “wrong side of the clipboard” and becoming a patient was VERY DIFFICULT FOR ME. But it was only accepting that the trauma (first of my husband’s death and then the P-attack) had changed my brain chemistry and that I could not just “shake this off” with talk therapy or a “strong will”—I am now only taking half the dose I did of medication at one point but I realize that without medication as well as therapy and good support, I would still be sitting in my house, like a hermit, staring at the dirty dishes in the sink, forgetting to eat, bathe, brush my teeth, or give a crap about anything that I didn’t HAVE TO DO or someone didn’t push me to do….crying or raging…alternately.
The trauma to our minds, hearts and souls has physical and chemical effects on our minds and bodies—a LONG list of not nice things—and depression is one of them. Your description of your feelings sounds very much like depression or Post traumatic stress syndrome, I strongly suggesst that you see a psychiatrist (best) or your family physician for a trial of medication AND arrange for some therapy with someone who UNDERSTANDS Ps. (some mental health professionals don’t so if your first choice doesn’t understand, MOVE ON)
The medication takes a while to work (a few weeks) and you don’t get “addicted” to it, though you may have to be on it a while, and it doesn’t make your problems “go away,” but it allows your brain to function more normally so that YOU can work on healing. Depression SAPS our will, our strength, our motivation and even our ability to think rationally.
God bless, you rperk, and (((hugs)))) for your healing. Stay here, learn more, ask questions,, make comments and take care of YOURSELF above all.
Maybe a bit depressed but medication does not work and I have been to several counselors, psychiatrists, group therapy and hearing “oh, thats too bad, and sorry to hear that” just hasn’t been to very beneficial for me.
Thank you so much Free. I cried when I read that. Years ago, someone I know had me read that exact scripture and over the years I had forgotten. I am so glad you gave that to me to remember and to read.
One of the miracles I see is this group — how caring and supportive, and loving everyon eis.
Rperk — can you accept that in this moment you are not feeling how you want to feel, and love yourself as you are?
What Free wrote is really powerful. That little girl inside you needs those hugs and love. She needs to feel safe — my little girl gets very distressed when I do things that hurt me, or bring me down. She wants to play freely and the only way she can do that is by me living ‘large’.
One of the most powerful things I did a couple of years ago was to take a program called Choices. (www.choicesseminars.com) Both my daughters (then 18 and 20) took it as well and it has helped us all heal — in particular, it has helped me move with grace and ease into forgiveness and into loving myself, exactly the way I am. There was always an edge of sadness in my writing and in my being, that lifted as I forgave myself and embraced myself with joy.
Jules — Free is right. Whatever he’s doing, it’s not about you and not something you need to spend your precious breath thinking about — he doesn’t deserve your time of day. Don’t give it to him. Move into loving you for all you’re worth. You are worth your rapt attention.
Congratulations on two months No Contact! As Free says, that is a real achievement. Celebrate!
M.L.-Yes I can be ok with today. Yesterday I read a couple of things that really hit home for me…
“When you hit a bad day and feel weak and a failure, just remember that you had the courage to undertake this journey in the first place-a courage that all the bullies and abusers you know do not have. You are stronger than you feel and you have a strength of character that they could only dream of.”
“Not a day, not a week, not a month and not even a year will be long enough to heal. The longer that you have been the victim of abuse, the longer it will most likely take. There will be times that the process feels incredibly slow. There will be times that you get sucked back in and feel that you have failed. There will be other times that you feel utterly demoralised by what you perceive to be slow process or even no process at all. These things are normal. These feelings are normal and you are normal. To be kind to yourself means to have patience, tolerance and forgiveness towards yourself and more than anything in this process, you need to be kind to yourself.”
“There will be times that you feel as if you are taking one step forward and two steps back. This is normal. The point is not to be healed, but to ACHIEVE HEALING.”
This and all the support from all of you has made me feel like I really can do this, it just takes time. And hard work. Thanx for caring.
rperk:
This may not work for you, but it’s taken me quite far in accepting a very distant past that cannot be changed. I had to accept it, first of all — look it squarely in the eye. Which, as you may agree, is difficult. These are some unpretty truths about our family members. Their denial can still send me into a tailspin. But then I have learned to accept that they are weaker than I am and they cannot face the truth. Skirt around it, yes. Allow for a nod of acknowledgment from time to time. Admit even part of it (my dad said to me a few months ago – “We know your brother chased you out the front door with a gun” and a few other things that nobody talks about anymore.
To me, his admittance of knowledge was HUGE. He wasn’t there for that one, but he was there for other things. His validation was truly important BUT — it was not necessary to my truth. Which exists without that validation, undiminished.
I’ve come to accept, over time, what happened and did not happen in that life. I am still healing from those wounds, as they do cause my eyes to start watering.
After accepting it, and integrating it (a really tough part) you have to acknowledge and GET ANGRY over it. Whether it’s past abuse, current abuse, the P’s behaviors, Family of origin, whatever. And yes, even anger at yourself for allowing it. Maybe especially that has to go out your soul’s door.
The anger part is critical. I have trouble expressing anger through the proper means. I bury it, swallow it, eat it, drink it, smoke it or laugh it away. Then it hauls up one day to bite me in the ass (and bite everyone else) and we’re all miserable.
Learn to let that anger out. Give yourself permission to be angry.
Write it all down, including the anger. Every past hurt, every last failure of someone else to acknowledge what happened to you — and validate your own experiences.
Also, take the time to clear out feelings that “you deserved” anything bad to happen. This is the point where I think therapy would help a lot of people – good therapy, not some nodding, smiling, sycophant paid listener.
We assign value to our experiences and really, at the end of life, they are just experiences – good, bad, indifferent. It’s what we do with them that matters . It’s taking the negatives of past and building, or creating, something new and positive from them: through art, or helping someone else in the same boat, or writing or any number of ways.
Even just raising my girls in a way that neither one of them became people who internalized others’ feelings about them or grew up in a violent home was a BIG VICTORY to me.
It was a creation of a life different than one I’d experienced as a child. It helped to negate what happened, put some space between me and that old life, further prove that what happened was wrong and should never be.
Whatever positives we can draw from these experiences are victories for our souls. But first, first we must come to terms with the past and our role in it, and we must get rid of the self-blame and voicelessness.
I know you can do this, too, rperk. May not look at it from where you’re sitting right now…but it didn’t look like it to me for a long time, either and probably not to many people at this site. But, here we all are at different stages of healing.
LilOrphan,
I sent a post kinda saying what you have just said that I read yesterday, but my posts keep getting lost in transit and most do not make it to the site or whatever you call it. Thank you, I do know healing takes time, I just got momentarily stuck.
Not to sound crazy, but I have went through the anger bit… quite a few times fantsizing about hog tying him naked, (he is so proud of his body) and throwing him into a biker bar with the words bikers stink or something like that painted on him. So my sense of humor is not gone…
Yes, Free…we both had childhood abuse, right? I know that’s what set-off a string of lousy choices, maimed a fair amount of self-esteem and left me still trying to recreate a rotten family of origin dynamic since early adulthood. Decided in 2001 to STOP doing that and figure it out – but it’s been on my own. I have to have therapy, but I have to be able to afford it and as a single mom even with insurance it’s hard to find any extra $$ right now.
To bold things you just type (take out the spaces)
and at the end.