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.

"The Future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams" Eleanor Roosevelt

The end of 2011 is quickly approaching. Isn't it strange, when we stop to look at it,we may be actually looking forward to the end only to start a new beginning? As some have said, we could "wish our lives away" if we are not careful. Do we REALLY have to wait for our future to arrive before we can believe in our dreams? I know through personal experience that we do NOT have to "just hope" anymore.

God made me, God can explain me...a christian view of abuse

This is a saying that I "made up" many years ago. I know that my being a wonderfully complex and intricately made female can be quite mind-boggling to those who are "trying to figure me out" and to that I reply "God made me, God CAN explain me". I really feel that we are not obligated to explain ourselves or be in a position where we must defend the right to "be who we are" and live as we choose. I have thought  of the I Love Lucy show, ok, I am showing my age with this, and Ricky would say to Lucy "Lucy, you got some "xplainnin to do" in his thick Latino accent. In abusive relationships, this fear, guilt and obligation (or FOG) to "explain ourselves" and even at times, "defend our beliefs and actions" can become all pervasive and the means by which we are controlled by those who do not seem to value us as individuals in their lives.

This even happens in "Christian" relationships. Marriages that are "in the sight of God" can be just as and even more defining, abusive, controlling and stressful than relationships without a "faith base". I believe that this is mainly due to deception. entitlement and perceived rights to  "authority" that a person that appears to be a "christian" but acts as an "abuser" has towards us. I have found many 'Christians" to be defining, judgemental and not "Christlike" as they propose. I believe that this is due to the "fake godly relationships" which are just as if not more displeasing to God as  "heathen" relationships.  The first boasts man's pride and fakes the "godliness and holiness of God" (having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof) and the second omits God in the relationship; at least honestly. 

I strongly believe that "defining" another person is abusive behavior and it is not the "right" of anyone to do that to another human being. God made me. Only God has the right to "speak into my life" and He does that by NOT defining who we are but AFFIRMING us; the ones whom HE has made and brought into existence. God made me, God can explain me and HE does not give anyone the right to define, demean, devalue and abuse me...ever.

The angst of enlightenment

All the while I was married to “the abusive christian husband” I felt strangely aware that the saying, “I HAVE been loved” was so true for me. This was a line from the book "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte. I knew that I had “been loved”. Why, oh why, had I settled to live with an abusive man who called himself a Christian but did not have the love, gentleness or respect that my “first love” had for me? My heart struggled with that question for years. I guess that I was supposed to stay married and "be happy" being abused by a christian man, being a Christian myself, and to forsake and forget thoughts of another man or the possibility of a happy life without abuse and with real love.

The dreams within my heart that I struggled with FOR YEARS were of the first man; my "first love" to whom I had loved and given my heart and body. I tried for years to get him out of my mind but I honestly didn't want to. I thought that perhaps I was still being tempted by thoughts of him because I felt so unloved in this marriage. I felt that I "should not" be thinking of him but as another song says "if loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right." I loved him and I knew that I  did. I "had been loved" by him and I still loved him with all my heart.

After nearly a year of being separated from my second and "abusive" husband, just before “the end” of the marriage, I was sitting at my computer in my office with him sitting in a chair next to me. While checking my email, I saw that a Robert “friended” me on Facebook. I looked over to him and asked, “are you friending me on Facebook?” and of course, not being computer saavy or Facebook-friendly, he replied “No, who IS friending you?”. It turned out to be my “first grade boyfriend”. “Oh my gosh, it's Bobby!” I howled. He was a really super cute young man with dark hair and eyes and a brilliant mischievous smile and wit. We would sharpen our pencils at the trash can together. I obviously must have had a soft spot for men named “Robert”. I have always loved that name. Well, I looked back to "my husband" and said “Oh, you don't have to worry about Bobby” (meaning having me being “taken away from him by Bobby” that is) and I added very honestly and boldly “NOW, if GCD "friends" me on Facebook THEN you can worry”...I even laughed about it but little did I know the fullness of the TRUTH that I blurted out.

The "Dark Ages" would soon be replaced by the Age of Enlightenment as my heart shone with the truth of the love that it had hid for G for all these years. Within five months from that moment, what had been “just a dream” of G finding me on Facebook and ever seeing each other again felt like a possibility. It seemed to visually break through the ethereal longing, desire and hope that I had hid in my heart. It's substance was infused with life that kindled the fire within my soul for his touch. I believed that he "must also love me" in the same way after all these years. I listened to my heart's cry, finally. I allowed myself to hear it's truth and hope for the love that I had known had been in my heart all those years.

A new day...realizing that abuse is a thing of the past

I am going to try to log and review my journey through various abuses;
being a mature believer in Christ Jesus (Messiah Yeshua) and biblically grounded and not strongly doctrinally swayed AND being an AVID musical person; who sings, plays a few instruments, reads music a little, improvs alot and praises God with this awesome gift...this is the perspective from which my journey will take place.

Abuse is abuse; it is hard to define when one doesn't truly know what it is. I have a saying "I didn't understand that I didn't understand, until I understood" and that is the same way that our perspective is while we are being abused...it is as if our spirits will not permit us to acknowledge such hideous behavior toward us; unthinkable control for someone else's benefit, mind bending agony to admit that maybe; the other person, whom we deeply love, and says that they love us; is and has been abusive to us in many ways.

This is where I will start...praying that all who read, who need hope in an abusive situation or healing from known past abuses and who want to BE FREE and BE ME again will find hope in my journey. I have seen miracles by the Hand of God Himself...I hope to share with you and encourage you to seek Him and be healed and live in freedom!!!!

Sending you love...