Authenticity

original quote by Newsong4him.blogspot.com

Authenticity truly is a "higher level" aspiration in our lives and even more so after our self-esteem has been damaged by abuse. I have found that DECLARING who I am and even stating that "and I don't care who likes it" has been like a machete in a jungle bringing clarity to my path and safety along my way. I have the right to respect myself. To love myself and to BE REAL. I have the right as a human to "be who I am" with no apologies. As the above quote says: I may reflect you but I am STILL ME...

Finding our inner selves

The process of healing from abuse or tragedy has been described as a struggle for life, similar to the caterpillar's metamorphic emergence as a butterfly from a cocoon. For myself, I can relate to this "new life" as being a bit strange, unfamiliar and even scary. My focus had been on running away from abuse, denying the abuse and my self in order to live and grow through it. I had to "find me" before my healing began and that is while I was still living with and in the constant presence of abuse.

Once I was OUT of the abuse and begin to heal, I experienced the "shedding of the old skin" much like the picture represents. With each peel, I could feel old expectations and disappointments leave me. I sensed, as if for the first time, a cool breeze or breath of HOPE across my face. Fresh air and a renewed vision for my life. I learned that my new life had been INSIDE ME all along and could only come out when I truly felt that it would be safe for me to reveal myself...to myself.

The hump of healing; getting past DENIAL

Have you ever refused to admit that a situation was as really as bad as it seemed? Haven't you "made excuses" for others behavior that bordered abuse? In the midst of trying to understand and make allowances in order to "get along" with personality disordered person (may also be an abuser) I have been the one who has been accused of "side arm psychology". I chose to try to see the underlying reasons for abuse.

"I didn't understand that I didn't understand,
UNTIL I understood"

I have actually been meditating, thinking, analyzing and hoping to find our I made progress through the process of healing from abuse. The first thing that I realized was needed, ONCE I HAD THE EPIPHANY, was that I HAD BEEN IN DENIAL. It is my "I didn't understand that I didn't understand, UNTIL I understood". When we are DEEP in denial, a defense mechanism that is used to help us survive actually can turn into the weapon used against us in our healing from the abuse that initiated it. I DENIED that what I was experiencing could have been abuse. I was "not being abuse". I had a "difficult or needy partner" but I was "not being abused". I would "not allow others to be treat me that way". All of this self-talk was DENIAL. I would not admit to myself that I was married to an ABUSIVE MAN who called himself a christian. I was not married to a christian man with "abuse problems". I had told him time and time again to STOP and he totally denied the possibility of ever being abusive toward me; even unintentionally. He was also a liar and turned into a bigamist. I was not the only one he had lied to. I also was in denial and under the belief that I had "no right" to leave him that since I was a christian, nor could I leave the abuse.

Part 2: Healing from Emotional Abuse

As my Personal Note of Welcome to my blog says:

I realize that my writing is not for everyone; 

it is for the HURT and the HOPEFUL; 

for those who want to "find themselves" 

and learn to DREAM AGAIN! 

Here is Part Two of a three post series:

HEALING FROM ABUSE

I may not be formally educated and may never feel that I am qualified to give advice on HOW to heal from abuse. I have learned so much through the school of life that I feel more than qualified to share the progress that I have made on my healing journey from abuse.

I would like to add that I have learned that healing is a process; as with the proverbial peeling of an onion, each layer may cause tears but as we peel each layer away, we get closer to the "sweet spot" of the onion; a place where HEALING is.

Healing from abuse:

Learning to live after abuse

Stages of Healing

Starting over...again.

Practising good self care

Find your own voice and sing your heart song

The Power of NO

Out of the Abundance of the Heart 

Real life healing from abuse

New-Years Resolutions for abuse survivors

RePost: One of many effects of domestic abuse: Complex-PTSD

*** A VITAL RE post to bring awareness and help to those suffering damage from abuse***

The effects of abuse are vast and very obscure and even misunderstood as being symptoms of having endured disrespect and degradation by another person's words and behavior. Over a long period of time, it can manifest as Complex Post traumatic stress disorder.  This is not a gender specific disorder but one that can debilitate either a woman or a man and be symptoms of either childhood or adult abuse. I have personally endured and "tried to live with" so much more mental and verbal abuse that I would ever care to admit. At first, after leaving the abusive environment, I didn't think that I had been "mentally damaged" as much as "emotionally scarred"  by the inhuman verbal abuse and mind-bending mental drama of living with a personality disordered spouse. I was diagnosed with C-PTSD several years ago and underwent one year of therapy which helped me considerably.  

I believe now, that the extreme mental fatigue and confusion that I experienced actually minimized my ability to emotionally heal from the long term effects of abuse; leaving the symptoms of C-PTSD.





Please consider this a PSA (public service announcement). If you, yourself or a loved one has exhibited the following "symptoms", please consider practising some "good self care" and educate yourself on the effects of abuse; even behavior that you have not previously thought of as being abuse. Your mental and emotional health could depend upon it.