CORE REACTOR

I realized something today about me.

It began with getting dressed this morning. As the weather changes and I find myself aware of the cold as part of my healing I want to dress warmer. Perhaps some long sleeves or maybe even a sweater, I will think. I have some, ones that have caught my eye because they are purple, some because they feel so soft and I imagine how comforting it would feel against me. I get them, but wearing them, that’s a whole nother story.

You see, I panic. Become all frantic and paranoid. Just have to rip them off or I can’t breathe. Then I stand there lost, fighting for control. striving to ground myself to here and now. For to be warm is just one of the many things I was denied for a period of my childhood, that now I struggle to accept. I can know I am cold while convincing my body I am not. Safer to not need and such.

 

Or so it can seem. But I am healing enough that I know when I am perceiving wrong sometimes, knowing needs to lead to changing. So, today, I spent time with Abba asking Him to help me understand this panic and apprehension. To understand that I may overcome.

He opened my heart to the truth of these feelings. Helped me to fathom that they are being fed of something. One doesn’t just panic unless they are panicking about something. I wondered, why am I apprehensive.?

What is the core reactor issue.

Then I knew. It is fear. Plain and simple. Fear.

This surprised me, I thought I had this fear thing under control. I mean, I don’t run away and hide like I used to. I share with people instead of keeping things bottled up. I trust my Lord, I feel safe in my home, safe in the life God has given me. “How can this be fear,” I thought.

But Abba always bring me to truth, so I needed to stop asking how and denying the fear. I need to turn to my Jesus and give the fear to Him.

I know this won’t be easy, I know I will need help and will have to push myself. Time to thank the Lord for my body and the way He created it, hear and feel what it is telling me. Treat it with love and respect. Dress it warm, even wear shoes more.

Allow my Abba to change my core, to one that learns to love me as my fear is yielded to Him.

His Peace the only kind of core reaction I desire.

REIMAGINE YOU AS YOU!

I don’t often reshare, but this has so much truth that I am. Praying it blesses you as much as it did me.

Reimagine You as YOU!

To be subjected to sexual trauma and abuse distorts how you think about yourself. If you had these experiences when you were growing up, you came to conclusions about your value. If a predator or a passive bystander didn’t value you, your boundaries, or your humanity, it’s pretty easy for you to believe that you have no value or personal rights. If you had these experiences after you became an adult, where you once might have felt empowered and able to take care of yourself, you now know that you weren’t as strong or empowered as you needed to be.

These experiences shape – or re-shape – how we think about ourselves. We hear it from survivors all the time: “I feel as if part of me died.” The actions of predators and the inactions of passive bystanders twist in your mind and heart until you begin to see yourself as they saw you. You begin to value yourself as they valued you. Their warped disregard for you and your well-being often translates into a kind of personal derailment of the life you should have been able to live.

The tricky part of recovery is to be able to pull apart the tentacles of lies that have attached themselves to your soul. It is to untangle the deception and free yourself from its grip.

Think about how the actions of the predators and passive bystanders communicated their view of your worth. Now, ask yourself if you believe THEIR value system. If you can see it for what it is – that you have accepted THEIR twisted reality – then you can insist on redefining yourself in ways that are true to your value and personal rights.

Here’s a fact: they were wrong. Not only in what they did – their actions – but in how they devalued you. They were wrong. They were wrong, wrong, wrong! Got it?

So, take their definitions of you and dump them in the garbage where they belong. Take the time to think about yourself, untethered from their warped ideas. Reclaim you. Reimagine YOU, not as they saw you, but as you see – or want to see YOU.  And remember: “Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life”

(Golda Meir).

Written by Sallie Culbreth and Anne Quinn

©2015 Committed to Freedom / STAARR – Sexual Trauma and Abuse Recovery Resources

WAS, WASN’T/IS, ISN’T

 

I stand before a mirror these days, many mirrors

For within I am but a House of Mirrors

To look within one is to see another

Stretching back to was and wasn’t, as far as my inner eye can see

Each mirror seems magical

In a curious sort of way

 

For though they are now

They show me then

To stare into one is to glimpse a was

While living an is

I have fallen down the Rabbit Hole

Where up is down, down is up

Then and Now having collided

It is so easy to keep my eyes downcast

To hide

This I am good at

To hide was safe, then

To touch wasn’t

Reaching out was fearsome

Withdrawing secure

My mirrors show me all of this

Hiding is not safe, now

For it will end all that has begun

So, I lift my head

Open my eyes

To see

What is

What isn’t

To shatter the lies

With the truth

I am not alone

So I can smile in all my then fear

I am surrounded of Heaven

Mama Mary beside me now

Holding my hand reassuringly

All of Heaven here

 

For many of my mirrors reflect my Momma of then

I was to not touch her

Never to look her in the eye

To want attention meant harm

“See me Momma,”

The unuttered cry of my child’s heart

I look rather upon Momma Mary

She smiles back

This is safe

So I reach out

Hesitantly, unsure

I touch ever so lightly

To find no rebuke in doing so

My touch welcome

I accepted

The  mirror cracks

Was and Wasn’t shattered

As Is and Isn’t remain

I have many such mirrors

Within my house of me

Yet, mirrors is all they are

Easily vanquished

 

Pieces to lie at my feet

The colors of now

Reflected in them

A rainbow

Of love within

 

 

 

Upside down

Turning right side up

 

 

 

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

Childhood Sexual Abuse
Have you ever really stopped, when hearing that someone is a survivor of this, to consider what it means for them?
Of course, the word sex, impacts you immediately with horror.
As it should.Rape on any level, is horrible, make no mistake, no matter the gender or the age.
Imagine if this is all you knew, from birth, from your Father…
While neglect and hate came from your Mother?
How would this impact one?
What I would like you to consider is this, that you can pray for these survivors as truly needed…
Here is what God is showing me are the emotional scars I am left to carry from this, for my childhood was such.

The child is left with only this…                                       

Love is sex, for sex is the only love I have known
Thus sex must be love too.

Touching has no boundaries
You have no rights.

Everything that happens to others is your fault,
Since you started it all by being born.

You wanted it to happen

No one cares since you are no one

Your sole purpose is to serve others wants

And on and on the list of twisted perspective you are fed goes, the pattern to continue, often, into adulthood. Why wouldn’t it? It is all the child understands.

I mean, think about it.

As a child…

Attention = sex
Being heard = sex
Being seen = sex
Touched? Sex

You get the picture? Sense the turmoil? Feel the frustration, the confusion, the utter lostness to understanding right from wrong? How twisted I was, how lost my heart.

How cruelest of cruel is childhood sexual abuse.

How betrayed I was of my parents.

All of this to be what my marriage was based upon, with my husband not showing me different.

How blind I was.

How Great is our God, that I am no more.

Being awakened to all the truth of what I endured, was horrible, hard, and overwhelming on so many levels

I have had to share things I don’t want to know or acknowledge let alone tell

There is no holding back the tide once the dam is broken

Only in facing the truth of what was can the truth of what is replace it

Truth is that I am loved, outside of sex
My Lord heard me even then, outside of sex
He saw me and wept for me, sees me now, outside of sex
Sits with me in my Spirit, communes with me, touching my heart, outside of sex.

Sex isn’t the sin I thought it was
It is a gift
One that was used against me
That doesn’t make the gift wrong
It was given wrong

Someday, perhaps, God will give me the experiencing of this gift right,
In marriage, a true one, built on giving, not taking
Or, perhaps, He won’t.

Thing is, He already is, in a sense
He has given me such a depth of His love and presence that it is enough no matter the future.

He is my Father, my Soul Mate, the Lover of my Soul.

Everything I need He supplies, I find no greater joy then in giving Him my all.

The past is done, the new begun.

The surviving done

That the thriving begun.

I AM BLESSED

I am weighted down

full of the abuse gone by,

the memories invade me

a stream of visits,

a turnstile of arriving,

never-ceasing

past remembering of that

which sank me lower to lower                            

my bed to carry my frame…

imprinted upon it.

for I was no form

rather a mold.

shaped to serve their sinful choices.

there was no me there,

only survival

I was strong for I had to be to survive…

I was indifferent in an attempt to convince myself that it didn’t matter.

I was anger and sorrow intertwined,

filled up of others sin

that I…

boiled over…

with wrath at the injustice.

I screamed out, in all the wrong ways.

for I was not heard, not seen, a no one to them.

an object to be forced down,

every part of me ground up.

I hated their faces full of leering and wanting and taking always

I went to my can…

with joy.

telling myself that if I curl up tight,

I can make-believe I am be within a womb

I can pretend tomorrow will be new’

that I am in the womb and will be reborn.

but, it never worked

I was still trash to her,                             

and his toy.

each day a horror I lived

so I became anger at night

indifference by day

i survived, I did

but now I am weighted with the memories

seeing me,

seeing them.

they are like lead drowning me in my slumber,

crashing into my dreams…

waking me.

that I must pull myself from this lostness…

this fog…

find me.

then I can be full of truth instead.

I resist the urge to go to where peace is,

to curl up outside, safe…

to be waken in love and gentleness,

to be found this time,

wanted and soothed.

I am going now, instead, to sit and be in Heaven awhile

Momma Mary is smiling at me,

she knows and is whispering, “Come.”

she will wrap herself around my nakedness

Abba will stand guard.

I can go home now…

to them

home.

it feels as somewhere I have never been,

that now I am.

and oh, how, precious beyond precious, it is.

MISTAKE OR LESSON?

When feelings find me, new ones that I have hidden from to survive, they get under my skin. An emotional “itch” that can so easily turn into more. It feels like it is festering and growing, fed off of fear, as I internally revisit the incident. The end result to be loss of peace as panic attack mode rises.

I don’t like this me.

This morning was/is one of these me kind of days.

I knew I had a meeting that held the potential to make me feel little, all wrapped in fear, the wrong if I do or if I don’t kind.

I rose early, fasting and praying to Abba, that His bravery would be mine. Reminding myself that I am not then, I don’t have to be fearful and that, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:18 (KJV) 

I prayed that I would love this person, stay objective to what was shared and remember I am loved with the greatest of loves of my Lord.

It worked, no fear, for Abba always keeps His promises, just gotta remember to claim them. He helped me remember.

Thing is, I forgot other feelings. As soon as I felt that I was being misjudged, my words twisted and thrown back at me, I got defensive. Angry too, now that I think about it. I wanted to point my finger at this person and say, “Look in the mirror, how about the way you talk to me?”

But that is not the point, it isn’t what matters, in the end.

No, I must answer for me, not others. I need to work on where I am at fault. That won’t happen if I don’t open my heart to truth.

So, here I am, writing it out to stem the panic. To see with Spiritual eyes rather than human. Eyes on me, not others.              

Judge not that ye be not judged.

I entered this meeting full of judging, attitude wise. So sure of my perfection, not open.

I want to cry just now, I am not liking me, I am ashamed and saddened at my attitude, that my heart, my Abba heart was so un-Christlike.

Can’t stay here though, no, gotta pick myself back up and move on.

Thinking I will let Jesus carry me awhile. I am sad. It is ok to need His help, He wants to help me.

I learned my lesson today.

That is what I am thankful for.

“I am sorry, Abba, forgive me. Help me to do better.”

Amen

Best thing is, He already has, trick being to forgive myself. That can be hard for abuse survivors, especially childhood ones. Hard but not impossible.

So, instead of beating myself up I will praise the Lord for this opportunity to learn and grow. I will find the joy in having moved forward in my healing, one small step at a time is still a step in the right direction.

I choose joy and peace, even as the storm rages.

I choose Jesus.

A SHOE KIND OF DAY

“Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long.”  Ephesians 6:15-18a (MSG)

Anyone who knows me is well aware of my “shoe issue.” I smile as I type this. Smile because I know many of you are doing just that, thinking, “What shoes?”

Now I am chuckling a bit.

Shoes, they aren’t really my thing. I am more likely to be without than with when it comes to them. Oh, I have lots of them, tucked away in a magnificent antique box that I found, perfect with all its cubbies. Thing is, my shoes spend more time there than on my feet.

I do love some of them, how they are comfortable, I don’t buy them if they aren’t! No high heels for this girl!

I just don’t wear them at times.

How could I revel in the walking through the rain puddles if I did? Feel the texture of the earth beneath my feet? I feel so much with my feet!

Yet, I am learning that there are times for shoelessness and times for wearing them.

After all, going barefoot in the snow, as I have often, isn’t good for my health. Caring for my feet requires shodding them in the heat, guarding them from harm.

So,  shoeless kind of days are less.

Today, Abba, woke me to this about wearing shoes.

But let me start at the beginning.

Yesterday I interacted with someone who put me on edge. The type of individual who raised a red flag for me as a sexual abuse survivor. He made me very uncomfortable as we rode the elevator, I found myself putting objects between us and guarding my answers to his questions.

Protecting myself, that’s what I was doing.                           

Wearing my shoes.

Big Girl shoes.

Safe Girl shoes.

I wore these shoes with confidence.

I felt grounded in my present.

No more barefoot used and tossed away.

No

This is the pair of shoes I found myself wearing yesterday…

Fearless ones.

Beautiful to look upon as they were embellished in Christ like  gemstones

Yet, well made that they not give.

I wasn’t afraid.

That’s big for me. I have had a lot of opportunities to fear these last few months, and I have found myself on the side of that fear way to often.

I have coward and shrunk back, cringed and claimed false blame…

Yesterday was a no more kind of day…

A shoe one.

I am allowed to guard my self,

I am secure in Christ and that means a world of difference, all the difference,

Yet, only if I shod myself in this truth,

I do.

 

With gratitude, in awe, and in praise.

Oh, I shall still enjoy strolling barefoot from time to time, splashing through the puddles..

Smiling as I do so, 

For these feet were made for walking and that’s just what they do!

Only, now they go with truth and love,

Now they walk with God.

Gotta go, it’s raining!

ALIGNING STRENGTHS

“Put your back into it!”

“Foot Forward, be ready!”

Watching your footwork, blocking, parring and rolling along with slipping and countering are all moves studied by boxers.

Moves that help them discover their weaknesses and find their strengths.

Defensive moves to offensive.

Fascinating stuff to read that God is using to teach me too.

I woke this morning with something someone said to me once rolling around in my thoughts, “I need you to align your strengths with the Lord, too, not just your suffering”

I truly had no idea what this meant, read and reread it so many times, asking God  to show me.   

He has and is..    

Today He gave me this vision…

“My Guardian Angel, Angels actually, for I am surrounded of them. How they fight for me. I see them now, in battle, defensive with swift swords and eyes ablaze. They never falling back in fear or doubting the victory will be theirs. The stand tall and true, backs straight and shields ready. Fear does not control them, they know they have the advantage, the power from on high.

Thing is, I see myself as well, and it isn’t a pleasant picture. I am in the center of my defenders, cowering. Down on my knees, head hid as I peek out. I am not viewing my wall of defense as that, rather I shiver, looking for a break to happen. I expect them to fail, am sure that I will be breached.

“You are wrong!”, my Heavenly Warriors shout at me with a mere look.

I cock my head and ponder this, looking down upon me. I see this armor of God I am clad in. It has seemed so heavy that I was unaware of what this new weight was. Not the pain and abuse gone by, as I thought, but my new me clothed to fight. I simply haven’t been putting my back into it, I have been choosing to hide.

“Do it!” the clanging of their swords command.

Uttering a plea, to my Commander and Lord Jesus Christ, for strength, I rise, slowly yet steadily to my full height. I am taller than I  can fathom, the mighty coursing of my blood sounds in my ears with each sure and steady beat of my heart.  It was I, my fear, that was the breach. Victory is what is happening around me. How I long to taste it as well, put an end to fear and doubt, being used and discarded.

My Lord nods at me as He motions to the fray.

A smile plays around the corners of my mouth as I nod back.

I am ready, I have strengths that are more than my weaknesses and an army to fill the gaps as needed. This battle was fought and won. upon Calvary, the blood shed for me then ensures my path onward, upward and forward.

There is no going back unless I choose so.

I don’t, not anymore.      

I kneel, one last time, here amid my Angels. I kneel in surrender and humbleness before my Lord. I bend knee to He who is worthy and gratitude. I kneel with strength and assuredness as He helps me rise and says, “Go forth, Tammy Anne of God, you are mine, freed to win.”

TAKING STOCK

Written this morning on a napkin…

I sit here this morning, out to breakfast                    

alone

simply me hanging with me

finding my quiet inner me

as I soothe my turmoil of late

my roiling, tumultuous emotions

they that have me scattered from the pelting

so unceasing

I sit here to look over self

for the storm has passed

I survey the carnage of me

taking stock

breathing deeply

sighing softly

my body is battered

the visible wreckage

of tear tossing sleepless nights

confused

not understanding

yet

my soul,

oh my soul!

Is so awakened

The Son having risen in anew places

Flooding me at the cresting of the horizons found

A new Sonrise within me

Today I may be tired

Today may even be long

but…

Today will be today           

Nothing more

I will be ok

Because Abba was already

In Today

Yesterday

He has taken stock

And made it all alright

“A SOFT PLACE TO FALL”

I spent part of my morning just now scrolling through the link to a church I used to attend, one I left under duress. I thought that I would like to visit there, just show up out of the blue.

No reason, just because.

Or, so, I thought.

But, Abba, is showing me there was reason.

Wrong reason.

No, it’s not wrong to want to see old friends, to visit and remember, as long as it’s for the right reasons.

Mine isn’t.

No, I want a soft place to fall toady.

I am ashamed to think that I would sacrifice my Communion time with my Lord, in my Home He has me in here, for this. For arms of old and love gone by rather to be desired more than Mass, more than the gift that the Eucharist is to me.

But, I do.

I want to belong in the way that I have belonged for long. Old connections, remember this and how about when we did that, kind of way.

A soft place to fall, this is the way a blogger describes her home for taking in unwanted, abused children. That the battle still rages for them but bringing them into their home gives them a soft place to fall.

Abuse never gives a soft landing, healing doesn’t much either most of the time.

I fall on face, flat and hard so often

Did lots this last few weeks.

I feel bruised and beaten, weary and worn, I won’t lie.

I am tired

I want to go home

I want daddy to make it all alright and momma to hold me

I want to fall and give up standing

I want to yield

Point fingers at those in the past, “You left me, after promising to help me.”

Thing is, that is all the pain talking, the loneliness seeping out and the past feeding now

So, I won’t visit these friends today, that would just be a band-aid

Instead, I will heed my best Friends call,

“Are you tired? Worn out? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

Matt 11: 28-30 MSG

My Jesus call.

I will come to Him, fall into His gift of the Eucharist, of His life for mine.

I will see Him upon the cross and know, He too desired, then and there, to go Home to Heaven

To fall into the arms of the angels right off that cross rather than bear it,

He didn’t yield and neither shall I, because of Him.

Momma Mary, she took Him off that cross so lovingly, gently and full of sorrow for all He endured.

She will hold me too, today, if I just ask and let her.

So, I will visit my friends, sometime, but when I can with a right heart.

Simply as friends.

Now, I must go and sit awhile with my Papa, God, that my heart be right when I go to Mass soon.

Home there, to Him, His presence and keeping, His arms sufficient, my present home the one He is building.

I am home, always, everywhere, with my God.

I fall into Him alone.

In His mercy and grace He always to catch me.

“Greater is He who is in you (me) than he (Satan’s tool, false belonging) who is in the world.” I John 4:4 KJV