When woundedness is NOT weakness

I have been meditating on WHY WE ARE IN SUCH DENIAL about the abuse that we have survived.

Sometimes I wonder "how well" we survived as we try to live our lives as it never happened.

This is one of the worst tragedies that I can imagine...to try to live a life without living it fully and freely. Living it in the woundedness and accepting it as a weakness when I believe that woundedness and KNOWING and being aware of our psychological and emotional anguish and angst is NOT a bad thing, it is NOT a weakness, it is a woundedness.


A child rides a bike, or skateboards or roller blades and falls and scrapes his knees and elbows until they bleed...THAT is woundedness...wounds that are visible, are palpable, or able to BE FELT and that NEED attention in order to heal.

This may be the reason why there is such SHAME surrounding mental illness and the damage caused by abuse. We are ashamed to see our woundedness and "push it aside" in denial, as one does with not wanting to remember the abuse and relive its pain.

Let's look again at the child...the child in us even. When we have endured OBVIOUS wounds, pain that hurts and may even be visible, just imagine if we DENY it and when our parent comes to clean us up, we push them away and say "What are you doing? I don't need you. I am not hurt". SEE, I am JUST FINE!!!". As a parent, we would be perplexed at the least and possibly very frustrated to see that our child is DENYING their wounds, treating them more like a "weakness" that brings shame but even MORE tragic than that, they try to "live with their woundedness" and pain and dysfunction rather than choose to "find themselves, heal from abuse and learn to dream again". They seem to have internalized  the effects of abuse and see themselves as "weak" and the shame that they feel is shunned and hid in the denial of their pain. How tragic.

I believe that there is not even ONE person who has not been "wounded" emotionally and psychologically, somehow, in their lives. We ALL have wounds that need healing. We ALL have weaknesses that we can turn into strengths. The great injustice that we do TO ourselves is when we confuse these two elements. We do not need to be ashamed of our wounds any more than we should see our weaknesses as permanent character flaws. We deserve to heal and live happy lives. We did not deserve to be abused. We did not bring mental illness or distress upon ourselves. We CAN grow and overcome a personality weakness that we see and acknowledge. We really are worth it.

***If you have read this and understand and feel that this has affected you, would you PLEASE join @/Singing a New Song on Facebook to comment and discuss and like and share the healing thoughts and encouragements that this community has to offer YOU.
YOU are worth it!!!