I have been on a long journey. A journey that started about three years ago. I found myself at random times up all night crying uncontrollably because I was conflicted about my father. I believed him to be a fine upstanding respectable person, and wished I could just forgive him and go back to forgetting. I tried to forget, I tried to ignore. But over and over, about a month apart I would be overcome by sobbing fits that would last all night.
Just a few years earlier then this I had lived through many miscarriages. As I endured that painful experience the trauma of my childhood resurfaced. Something I had successfully locked away in a box of forgetting started to hurt and nag at me again. But ignore it I did, with great effort.
I had just moved into my own home. Now after finally owning my own place did I finally feel safe enough, I believe this is why years after the miscarriages I found myself sobbing uncontrollably.
During my miscarriages I had a wonderful neighbor and my friend/ VT er comfort me. My dear neighbor suggested counseling to me, in order to help me in my trial. I did try out some counseling with that people my insurance would pay for. But I was generally unimpressed, and my wounds were bandaged over in the most simple of ways.
Now years later in my new home when uncontrollable crying fits over took me I started to think once again of my neighbor and her recommendation of a counselor. I would suffer greatly through the crying fits, but try to hid it even from my husband asleep, sometimes in the same room, sometimes I would leave and go far away where he could not hear. Because if he heard I felt I had to pretend I was not crying and all was ok.
Thankfully one night in despair and crying I felt I must have some form of release from my reality. I emailed my neighbor and told her that I was having crying fits. That it was awful. That I would be in a state of denial in the morning. But I asked her to please remind me that I needed counseling even if I was in denial. Which she lovingly did. She gently reminded a little here a little there. And I move in and out of crying fits and denial, until I came to terms with the fact that my crying would not be solved until I tried something new, like maybe the counselor she was recommending.
So about three years ago I set up an appointment to go see Fred.\And I was so overcome with anxiety that I missed my first appointment. Anxiety over took me so that I was very late for my second appointment. But in time I learned to love and look forward to my appointments even though the anxiety of confronting my trauma still greatly existed, and I still occasionally missed appointments.
I hated the LDS meem of being blessed by trials. I hated it. But today, after a long road of seeing Fred for three years I know something of gratitude. I find it curious that I feel gratitude. I do not feel gratitude for my trial. Please understand that that simple meem works great for the LDS person who is faced with things like sickness, loss of a job, or even loss of a loved one. But for me it caused great conflict when placed in the context of abuse. To feel grateful for the abuse is to consider that the abuse somehow came from God. A Blasphemy I could not let my self get even close to thinking. No, instead my eternal soul needed to see a very clear distinct undeniable line dividing the abuse as far asunder from God as possible. It was either that or leave the church, and that is quite the honest truth.
I could not answer why choice was so valuable that God did not step in with miracles and rescue me from my father. I could not answer that and not wonder why/ and how is God God if he does not rescue the innocent. That question alone is complicated and unanswerable enough. But add to that any slight or unintended implication that abuse comes from God and you might just see some fangs com out of my mouth. The very thought made me spitting mad.
I wanted to believe in God. I knew from former spiritual experiences that not believing in God was like living in a world of shattered glass. I wanted to believe in God. So I decided my God could have nothing to do with my torture, with my abuse, nothing. And I wanted to hear no easily said meems, intended to make me feel better, that may possibly be construed to mean that God had anything to do with my abuse....
Where is my point on Gratitude. I am off on a tangent.
So I divided it. I made very distinct divisions in my mind. Abuse was a sin of Man. A spiteful and horrible sin from man. And the very nature of God was to fight against abusers. For some reason freedom of Choice did not include miracle rescues of many innocent children. But the blame for the abuse had to be distinctly placed on the shoulders of the abuser and as far from God as possible.
And I forget the end cap of that point... I was suppose to be talking about Gratitude.
Today as I lay down to go to sleep I am startled awake by my trained in protections. Night after night is a torture as I try to trust the world enough, to relax enough, to hope I only startle awake a few times, instead of repeatedly for hours. Night after night has been torture of trying to get myself to somehow relax and sleep as I need to. Tonight I startled awake, who knows how many times. And for once instead of feeling the feeling of dread and torture, and the fear and anxiety of enduring yet another night of this torture. Instead of those negative feelings I started instead to think about the things I am grateful for.
I am grateful for an amazing husband. The only thing that heals abuse is Love, and I do not know how anyone else could do it without a supportive husband like my own. I am grateful for my kids. In them I can change the pattern of generational abuse, in them I can change future generations and save future generations from the abuse of my grandfathers. And I am thankful for the Love of Christ. Though I do not always believe in it. Though my abused soul is skeptical and doubtful and in some ways deadened to feeling the Love of Christ. I am grateful for the wonderful people around me that help communicate Christs love to me by their simple actions of kindness.
and that is all I find I can write because of anxiety.
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