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...

Starting on the inside...

 

It is NOT uncommon to expect and receive
kindness or respect from others; except when 

you're in relationship with an abusive person. 

We look on the outside of ourselves to
find validation, praise and encouragement and we may find it in some places, but we are not likely to find them in a domestically abusive relationship. 

We usually can trust another person to not harm us, 

to wish us well and to hope for the best for us; unless we are married to or in relationship with an abuser. 

In an abusive relationship; 
the things that should be healthy, are not.

Deliberate Living (affirmation)

This phrase came to my mind. As an abuse survivor and one who is still "finding me", healing from abuse and daring to DREAM again, it reminded me of the "lost power" of choosing with MY WILL so...

Today, I CHOOSE...

that is a powerful and validating statement even if it has no qualifier or description of WHAT I choose. 

The mere act of choosing is the power and credibility of my WILL.

To CHOOSE all that I CHOOSE TO CHOOSE IS really living!!!!

I CHOOSE...to deliberately live today.

When we leave our lives up to chance, we are selling ourselves short of all that life has to offer us. We deserve SO MUCH BETTER than to "just have a chance" at life...we have a choice! We deserve to LIVE it.

Hot potato!

I just couldn't help myself...LOL. When I saw this picture of a silhouette of a person who appears to be "holding the son" my memories went back to my childhood and the game "Hot Potato". Ok, if you remember that also, we both know HOW OLD we are! Like the game, this picture reminds me of "what we get our hands on" and we "get burnt"
at times while playing the game. This is just an illusion; of course we cannot hold the sun in our hands but we present the illusion of holding it without the real consequences. What are YOU holding onto?

A trip BACK TO real life

Life. It can pass us by so quickly. All we need to do is "turn around" to see that the years fly by and we are standing looking back onto a life that we didn't get to fully live. That is how abuse has affected me. There were times that I "wished my life away" by hoping that I could get through another "crazy abuse cycle" and another frustrating and inane conversation that seem more of a tug-of-war than a meeting of minds. Crazy. Just trying to make sense out of the events that have taken place can be mind-boggling. Add a child to this mix and you have a protective mom with her cub standing up against lies, manipulation, verbal abuse, emotional trauma and turmoil, more lies and deceit, parental alienation and sabotage of other relationships. I had been sucked into the whirlwind of deceit and charm and tossed about by the crazy making confusion of an alternate reality until my mind was blown off course of my life plan. What I thought was a "life", was truly a disaster, a trauma, a devastation left by the mind bending contortions and soul crushing frustration of living in an abusive marriage with a personality disordered man.
I look back and say just as Robin William's character in Mrs. Doubfire said: Ever wish you could freeze frame a moment in your day, and look at it and say "this is not my life"? This is JUST how I felt while trying to live in an abusive marriage. The world wasn't real to me any more. Each day was just as hopeless and dark as the day before. I fell headlong into depression and despair. Would my life ever "be mine" again? That is about the time that I came "out of the fog" (frustration, obligation and guilt) and the complexities of emotions of trying to survive in an abusive relationship. One day I literally said to myself "I can't take this any more!"  I just HAD to GET BACK to MY life...somehow. I couldn't imagine that being possible, and being "stuck" and hopeless, I could not imagine the "way out". I lost "years" before I realized that my life was slipping away. My life's energy was fading and my will to "live" was dying before my eyes. "This is not my life", I screamed...at least hoping that I would hear myself and believe it before it was too late.