Freedom. Will we EVER know it?

Haven't we all tried thought that "if we were just out of an abusive relationship" that life would be wonderful and that "everything would be fine" only to find it NOT to be the case.

I know that I have expected to feel like a bird flying out of a cage that had imprisoned it only to find that I had taken the damage of abuse with me. My cage might have gotten bigger, but until I was "on the healing journey", though I was "out of the cage", I was still imprisoned by the pain and memories of abuse.

So are you OUT of that abusive relationship but STILL feeling imprisoned by the ways that abuse had damaged your self-esteem, your hope and your ambition? I understand. We do take woundedness with us unless we HEAL from the abuse which we have extricated ourselves.

That's why it is SO important to FIND OURSELVES first. We find the person who has been suppressed, oppressed and abused and FREE HER, then we start on the journey of HEALING FROM ABUSE.  This is not only a life changing but life and thought altering process that we carry throughout the rest of our lives. We gain tools and resources and skills of discernment and understanding that we would not have learned any other way. While we are walking along, knowing more and more about the wonderful person who we are, we start LEARNING TO DREAM AGAIN.  This is the part of our healing that we really have a hard time believing exists at all.

I feel like I have lost myself; I don't know myself anymore.

I don't trust anyone, I have been hurt too much. Where do I begin healing? 

How can I dream again after all that I've been through 

when I can't even believe that I deserve to live without abuse? 

The answer to these questions and SO many others lie in the courage to be honest with ourselves in the midst of feeling the deep psychic, emotional and intellectual pain from abuse.  We have to believe that the pain that we feel is greater than the pain of healing and not be afraid to learn and grow OUT of the abuse. We need to get angry enough to say "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH" and we must constantly remember...that we need to hear... "YOU ARE WORTH IT".