They say in AA that the most inspirational people are the ones who are just bare and honest. Now I personally have not experienced this first hand, never been in any group, and maybe that's why I have a weak following. Perhaps its hard to hear uplifting thoughts, when so much of the world and our lives are downers. Its so easy to be miserable, then look at someone smiling and think 'oh what do they know' or 'bet its easy to be happy when your life is perfect'. So I thought I would take a considerable amount of time to share with you that miserable people are the ones you see smiling too!
I was not always the way I am now, and I'm not even fully the way I 'am now' right now, I still have learning and growth to do to get out of my own inferno.
I do not know where or when it all started but can can recalls some of the factors that have shaped these layers of fear, self doubt, unworthiness.. honestly th only reason I am alive today is because my baby brother and sister literally saved my life. See back then they were 8 and 4 years old, so if I were to have taken my own life, there was no way their young minds (esp my little brothers autistic mind) would be able to understand something like that. There was no way I could be so selfish as to tramatize them like that. So I just suffered, waking up everyday, having to live in my mom and live my life was worse than chineses water torture, because at least when someone tortures a captive, they will either stop at some point or kill the hostage, but either way there was a release. I never was so fortunate....
Dating back to my earliest childhood memory, I was 4 years olf, I know because my younger sister was fortunate enough to be 2 years old and still in her crib. You know most little girls remember horses, or dancing barefoot in grass, but I remember Donnie. Donnie was an individual that was in our lives for only a minute, perhaps a month or so at best, ... oh my gosh it is hard to type when your eyes are blurry with tears..sorry.. anywho.. long story short one morning he came to our bedroom and when we asked for some breakfast his reply was 'i'll give you some food if you suck on this first.' Being an innocent child of 4 I didn't know what 'this' was and being hungry I did what I was told, and after I never got food, I just grew up. I lost my innocence at the age of 4! I'm really impressed to find out as an adult that my grandma (nicest person in the world) had to show incridable restraint not to literally murder this man in broad day light one time with her car in a bank parking lot. I really hope my mom is not reading this post today, because I know that this haunts her, and I do not mean to hurt her in any way by bringing any of this up now.
My goal I should note is not to blog about self pity, I'm not seeking attention, I just want to be honest for 2 reasons, 1 I am hoping to be able to connect and relate to people and 2 to show that things, no matter how horrible can be ok. The first time I told anyone about Donnie was when I was 14 I shared it with my first love, Jason. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, to just be naked and honest with someone, not knowing how they would react. Then on top of that, sharing the story I literally relived the whole experience of it. 10 years later, being 24 now, the more I had shared that story the less it haunted me, by the age of 21 Donnie FINALLY had no more power over me! So I successfully learned to let go of one demon, but what about the rest?
My biggest life struggle is searching for acceptance, approval, love. Which I know sounds funny since I am a married woman, but even now I have to be honest with myself, I don't think I am loveable, and until I learn that I am, my going to continue to doubt my husband, and the guilt I feel about putting him through that, makes it just that much harder for me to feel worthy of love. Outside of my husband, I struggle with my own family, I'm a regual 'black sheep' as it were. I don't know how to relate with my own sisters, I feel shy and ashamed around them, everytime still when I go home from one of there houses I come home crying to my husband because I feel picked on and hated when I see them. My mom and my stepdad, its weird to say, but I do empathize with their struggle to try and show me their love and support, so the logical side of my brain tells me they care, but emotionally I don't feel it. Only person I've ever believed without struggle is my maternal grandam, Nana, still to this day she is my bestfriend. Without her I don't know where I would be or who I would be. In our household growing up, us girls didn't know how to call 911, we knew how to call Nana, and she saved us so many times.
See Donnie wasn't the only part of my fastgrowth experience, he was just my earliest memory. As a child I suffered sexual abuse, physical abuse, and emotional malnurishment. My Senior Project in highschool was a thesis project on any topic we wanted. I chose child abuse. I researched everything from signs and symptoms to long term physical and pyschological effect, wrote a 20 page paper, did community service, and build a display board and delievered a speech. To this day I still have my paper on my harddrive. Learning all the ins and outs of my past and present, just gave me knowledge and insights to help explain why I am the way I am, but it didn't help me to learn how to get past it, how to escape it, or let it go or how to just move on.
Part of me still feels like a scared kid writting this because of what happened in the 3rd grade. I was in Mr. Howards class, and every morning we had a show and tell followed by a sharing time of what happened over the week. So one day I shared how my mom gave me a bloody nose. When I came home there were 2 men in suits leaving as us girls were getting off our bus. When I walked in my mom pulled me aside and yelled at me telling me never again was I to talk to anybody for any reason about 'her' business... that's what stands out the most to me, she cont. to emphasize that it was not 'my' business that I was getting beat up, but that it was 'her' business. And I really did believe her.
Since I now know it to be 'my' business, here is what I've got on the bill: spanking punishment consisted of having our mouths ducktaped, our hands tied, bare rears, and the hardest kitchenwear (used to be wooden spoons, but those kept breaking), if it wasn't that we would get slapped in the face, punched in the ribs, back or gut, kicked, or throwned acrossed the room, or if we really misbehaved, we went hungry.
To be even more honest, it wasn't until my senior year of high school that I found out that any of this was odd or not right, see I was VERY sheltered. My life was wake up, go to school, come home, go to my room, come out for dinner or chores, then back to my room, MY WHOLE LIFE. Still to this day I have no clue what common sense or social skills are, I just go by the 'fake it til you make it' creed and hope it works out.
Now through some sociology courses in college and through yoga, my eyes have been opened to empathy and compassion. I'm still learning how to see myself, but for now my biggest feat has been being able to see my mom. To know that yes she did mess up, that she is not a bad person, she has grown up so much since then, and I know that it she suffered from stress and poor anger management. She is a very loving woman, because if she wasn't she wouldn't continue to beat herself up everyday over the mistakes of her past. I don't know if I will be able to help her or free her, since I haven't yet figured out how to fully help myself yet, but my hope is that the more I learn and grown and be a student if yoga as much, if not more than I am a teahcer, that on this path we both will one day soon be able to master the forget part of forgive and forget.
Being sheltered, though it can keep a person safe from the outside world, it stunts growth and knowedge of theoutside world. College was the first time doing anything on my own, and boy was I just the most niave little virgin. Boy did I fall for the oldest 'i love you' oanties off trick in the book. Wow my first 'adult' relationship was like being right back at home.he was very emotionally abusive, but in a way I had never seen before, so I was defenseless. He had mental manipulation down, it started with small things like I couldn't wear hooped earrings, to having to let him touch me whenever and however he wanted because he said 'youre my girlfriend, what's yours is mine and what's mine if yours'. Wasn't til after we broke up that I learned about 'date rape'. So some more emotional and psychological abuse. Summer break was an interesting one. So durning the school year I was 18 and a virgin, he changed that, he who has been sleeping with girls since he was 14. Yet summer break durning my birthday phone call he (deciding to be a christian again, whilst I was still athiest) gave me the present of
I was not always the way I am now, and I'm not even fully the way I 'am now' right now, I still have learning and growth to do to get out of my own inferno.
I do not know where or when it all started but can can recalls some of the factors that have shaped these layers of fear, self doubt, unworthiness.. honestly th only reason I am alive today is because my baby brother and sister literally saved my life. See back then they were 8 and 4 years old, so if I were to have taken my own life, there was no way their young minds (esp my little brothers autistic mind) would be able to understand something like that. There was no way I could be so selfish as to tramatize them like that. So I just suffered, waking up everyday, having to live in my mom and live my life was worse than chineses water torture, because at least when someone tortures a captive, they will either stop at some point or kill the hostage, but either way there was a release. I never was so fortunate....
Dating back to my earliest childhood memory, I was 4 years olf, I know because my younger sister was fortunate enough to be 2 years old and still in her crib. You know most little girls remember horses, or dancing barefoot in grass, but I remember Donnie. Donnie was an individual that was in our lives for only a minute, perhaps a month or so at best, ... oh my gosh it is hard to type when your eyes are blurry with tears..sorry.. anywho.. long story short one morning he came to our bedroom and when we asked for some breakfast his reply was 'i'll give you some food if you suck on this first.' Being an innocent child of 4 I didn't know what 'this' was and being hungry I did what I was told, and after I never got food, I just grew up. I lost my innocence at the age of 4! I'm really impressed to find out as an adult that my grandma (nicest person in the world) had to show incridable restraint not to literally murder this man in broad day light one time with her car in a bank parking lot. I really hope my mom is not reading this post today, because I know that this haunts her, and I do not mean to hurt her in any way by bringing any of this up now.
My goal I should note is not to blog about self pity, I'm not seeking attention, I just want to be honest for 2 reasons, 1 I am hoping to be able to connect and relate to people and 2 to show that things, no matter how horrible can be ok. The first time I told anyone about Donnie was when I was 14 I shared it with my first love, Jason. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, to just be naked and honest with someone, not knowing how they would react. Then on top of that, sharing the story I literally relived the whole experience of it. 10 years later, being 24 now, the more I had shared that story the less it haunted me, by the age of 21 Donnie FINALLY had no more power over me! So I successfully learned to let go of one demon, but what about the rest?
My biggest life struggle is searching for acceptance, approval, love. Which I know sounds funny since I am a married woman, but even now I have to be honest with myself, I don't think I am loveable, and until I learn that I am, my going to continue to doubt my husband, and the guilt I feel about putting him through that, makes it just that much harder for me to feel worthy of love. Outside of my husband, I struggle with my own family, I'm a regual 'black sheep' as it were. I don't know how to relate with my own sisters, I feel shy and ashamed around them, everytime still when I go home from one of there houses I come home crying to my husband because I feel picked on and hated when I see them. My mom and my stepdad, its weird to say, but I do empathize with their struggle to try and show me their love and support, so the logical side of my brain tells me they care, but emotionally I don't feel it. Only person I've ever believed without struggle is my maternal grandam, Nana, still to this day she is my bestfriend. Without her I don't know where I would be or who I would be. In our household growing up, us girls didn't know how to call 911, we knew how to call Nana, and she saved us so many times.
See Donnie wasn't the only part of my fastgrowth experience, he was just my earliest memory. As a child I suffered sexual abuse, physical abuse, and emotional malnurishment. My Senior Project in highschool was a thesis project on any topic we wanted. I chose child abuse. I researched everything from signs and symptoms to long term physical and pyschological effect, wrote a 20 page paper, did community service, and build a display board and delievered a speech. To this day I still have my paper on my harddrive. Learning all the ins and outs of my past and present, just gave me knowledge and insights to help explain why I am the way I am, but it didn't help me to learn how to get past it, how to escape it, or let it go or how to just move on.
Part of me still feels like a scared kid writting this because of what happened in the 3rd grade. I was in Mr. Howards class, and every morning we had a show and tell followed by a sharing time of what happened over the week. So one day I shared how my mom gave me a bloody nose. When I came home there were 2 men in suits leaving as us girls were getting off our bus. When I walked in my mom pulled me aside and yelled at me telling me never again was I to talk to anybody for any reason about 'her' business... that's what stands out the most to me, she cont. to emphasize that it was not 'my' business that I was getting beat up, but that it was 'her' business. And I really did believe her.
Since I now know it to be 'my' business, here is what I've got on the bill: spanking punishment consisted of having our mouths ducktaped, our hands tied, bare rears, and the hardest kitchenwear (used to be wooden spoons, but those kept breaking), if it wasn't that we would get slapped in the face, punched in the ribs, back or gut, kicked, or throwned acrossed the room, or if we really misbehaved, we went hungry.
To be even more honest, it wasn't until my senior year of high school that I found out that any of this was odd or not right, see I was VERY sheltered. My life was wake up, go to school, come home, go to my room, come out for dinner or chores, then back to my room, MY WHOLE LIFE. Still to this day I have no clue what common sense or social skills are, I just go by the 'fake it til you make it' creed and hope it works out.
Now through some sociology courses in college and through yoga, my eyes have been opened to empathy and compassion. I'm still learning how to see myself, but for now my biggest feat has been being able to see my mom. To know that yes she did mess up, that she is not a bad person, she has grown up so much since then, and I know that it she suffered from stress and poor anger management. She is a very loving woman, because if she wasn't she wouldn't continue to beat herself up everyday over the mistakes of her past. I don't know if I will be able to help her or free her, since I haven't yet figured out how to fully help myself yet, but my hope is that the more I learn and grown and be a student if yoga as much, if not more than I am a teahcer, that on this path we both will one day soon be able to master the forget part of forgive and forget.
Being sheltered, though it can keep a person safe from the outside world, it stunts growth and knowedge of theoutside world. College was the first time doing anything on my own, and boy was I just the most niave little virgin. Boy did I fall for the oldest 'i love you' oanties off trick in the book. Wow my first 'adult' relationship was like being right back at home.he was very emotionally abusive, but in a way I had never seen before, so I was defenseless. He had mental manipulation down, it started with small things like I couldn't wear hooped earrings, to having to let him touch me whenever and however he wanted because he said 'youre my girlfriend, what's yours is mine and what's mine if yours'. Wasn't til after we broke up that I learned about 'date rape'. So some more emotional and psychological abuse. Summer break was an interesting one. So durning the school year I was 18 and a virgin, he changed that, he who has been sleeping with girls since he was 14. Yet summer break durning my birthday phone call he (deciding to be a christian again, whilst I was still athiest) gave me the present of
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