Confessions of the Deepest Soul

Today has brought forth from myself realizations that required me to accept them as truth. Therefore, they became self confessions and with those came tears, screams, pain and a beautiful release.

This past month has been very difficult for me. I have been required, in the course of my career, to dive into some topics that have affected me personally in the past. I went into thinking I had nothing to worry about. I'm a very open person and have always been very open about my past. I've helped others deal with what they've experienced, similar to my own experiences.

Yet, this was different. This was statistics with numbers. The sheer magnitude of the numbers. I am brought to tears just typing that. So many children, so many people......abused, beaten, tormented, raped, tortured. So many. So very many.

Then there were the "why". So many theories. I have long since advocated that the abuser has their own set of trauma that they were not able to work through. I've worked with the abusers. I know that they abuse out of the dysfunction that happened to them when they, as innocent children, were abused. Yet here, it was all split apart, dissected, investigated, and laid out. Looking at the abusers from this perspective, it brought back that old familiar fear. It made me feel unsafe again.

I had to read case studies.I had to watch videos. I had to remember my own muffled screams in my mind. I saw videos of 8 year old children offering to give blow jobs. I read of parents that sold videos of them molesting their own flesh and blood children. I studies cases of psychopaths and sociopaths and even heard their explanations as they justified their actions, even as they argued that it benefitted the child to feel the type of love they offered. I heard the women who were to scared to speak out publicly, and kept their faces in shadows. I have spent the last several weeks being daily reminded of that which I have fought to forget.

I have discovered that underneath all my walls and layers and facades and chains........... that I am weak. That I am scared. And that I am angry. So very angry.

I thought I had released that anger long ago. Because you have to forgive your abusers and move forward. How can you forgive and hold onto the anger? I don't hold animosity towards the ones that ripped away all my sanity. I don't wish them to be hurt. I pity them. I don't understand them. My heart aches for them. But I am angry. I am their VICTIM and though I have survived and accomplished many things in life, there are apparently still moments like these. Moments where I can feel weak, and vulnerable, and scared. Moments where, even though I know I will keep standing tall and moving forward, I just want to curl up small and have someone hold me and tell me that everything is going to be OK even as I know that I am most likely being lied to.

As a result of the last several weeks, I've made many mistakes. I've neglected responsibilities in work, parenting, maintaining my household, and college. I've pushed away someone I think may have been really good for me and I am not sure if he can understand that the timing of his entrance into my life just really, truly, sucked. I've withdrew inside myself, let my energies run wild, and sat in front of my computer 90% of my waking hours in an attempt not to think.

Not to think.

Yet, it all just exploded in an email I was writing earlier. The tears exploded with it. Because I have not cried the last several weeks. I have not cried for the victims or the survivors I studied. I have not cried for their offenders. I have not cried for myself.

I held it all in trying to push it all back into that pretty box I've kept it in for so long.

In the process I let go of my sanity somehow.

I don't want to box up those parts of me again. I don't want to bury it deep inside and wait years thinking everything is fine only to have them pop out like some infernal jack in the box.

I want to ..... I don't know. I can't let them go,they are my memories, they are who I am. They do not define me, but they have created me. I can't box them back up.

But I don't know how to embrace this part of me. I've only just come to the realization that the parts of my sexuality others condemn is a direct result of that past and that there are those out there that can see the beauty in it (thank you Fetlife). I've just started to accept that so much of my sexuality I have hidden because of it's abnormality can be embraced.

Yet, it's easier to embrace some things than others.

I guess, deep down, I still see those parts of me as ugly. Although I've found a place where there are finally people that can accept and appreciate the "fetishes" that are part of who I am, I still look inside myself and feel as if I need to clorox my insides. People haven't helped through the years. I've had men that broke up with me when they found out I'd been raped. Quite a lot of men. I've had women spurn our friendship. I've seen the repulsed look on my own parent's face when they finally were told so many years later. It's hard to embrace and love a part of yourself that so many other people are disgusted by.

I thought I was OK.

I thought I was past all this.

I thought I'd never be here again.

I am so angry at what was done to me. No one is ever going to be able to give me the validation I want. That validation has to come from within and I haven't figured it out yet.

I am broken, but I am whole. I am shattered, but I am complete. I am unique, yet I am everyone. I am me...... and I have to learn for that to be enough.

It's Lonely Here

There is a room I go to in my mind. It's a room filled with shoes. There are all kinds of shoes. They are all my shoes. 

I see the shoes that never seemed to fit when I was a child. They were the shoes that showed others I was poor and prompted their cruel taunts. 

I see the shoes I wore when I ran away from home. 

I see the shoes I wore when I walked hours and hours in freezing weather with no where to go. I remember stopping in a sunny patch on the sidewalk and removing those shoes so that I could try to rub some warmth into my feet. 

I see the shoes that were thrown beside the bed as I lost my virginity to rape.

 I see my dancing shoes that I wore to clubs, dancing away all worries and fears until exhaustion took me over.

 I see the shoes I wore when I ran from the guys that would again take away another shard of innocence. 

I see the shoes I had on the first time I decided to fight back against the beatings my husband was giving me. 

I see the shoes I wore when I went to bury a baby murdered. 

 I see the shoes the battered women's shelter gave me when I came in, as I had none on my feet. 

I see the shoes I wore my first day to college. 

I see the blue booties I wore while delivering my children. 

I see the slippers I wore at my wedding and the shoes I wore at my best friends funeral. 

I see the shoes I wore when depressed and the shoes I wore when believing for miracles. 

I see the shoes I wore when I was high and drunk.

I see the shoes I wore during the murder trial. 

I see the shoes I wore as I ran to my friend who had just shot himself.  

I see the shoes I wore while getting clean. 

I see the shoes I wore when I was diagnosed with chronic health issues. 

I see the shoes I wore when I discovered my children have Autism. 

I see shoes and shoes and shoes and more shoes. 

There are so many and I can't help but wonder.....could one person really have worn so many shoes in their lifetime? 

I am saddened to know the answer is yes. I don't know if the shoes I've worn have ever helped another. I talk often of my life's experiences in the hope that maybe someone else won't have to experience what I have gone through. I know that, due to the many shoes I have worn, there are many who will talk to me when they refuse to talk to anyone else. I know that the many shoes I have worn have opened my eyes. I have removed the blinders and can see so much more than before. The shoes I've worn have walked away any judgements. The shoes I've worn have opened my heart to others. The shoes I've worn have helped me to see the world for how scary, how cruel, how heartbreaking it can truly be. 

I've worn enough shoes that rarely do I hear someone say, "You've never walked in my shoes" and I'm unable to see the shoes we both shared. 

With all the shoes in the room, there is a dark lonely corner. It is the corner I find myself in when I need to talk about so many pairs of shoes. It's the corner where I sit and weep with loneliness. It's the corner where, surrounded by shoes, I realize there is no one else that has worn all my shoes. It's the moments when the quantity of my shoes, and all they mean, seek to devour me. It's at that time when I realize that I don't have anyone to talk to about all my shoes. I have people I can talk to about this pair of shoes. I have people I can talk to about that pair of shoes. Yet, I haven't met anyone with as many shoes as I have. I've spent years letting others know they aren't alone and I want to find a room filled with as many shoes as mine. I want that one person to look at me and tell me they understand. 

I had a flashback today. I'm 11 years out. 11 years and 1 day out. And I had a flashback. I always think I've reached a point where the flashbacks will be over and gone with. After so many months of not having one, I think I'm in the clear. But, in the most tense times.......times of stress when I already feel I can't handle anything else........a trigger comes. With that trigger I am sent spiraling backwards to a time over a decade ago. I can see the vein popping out of his head as he moves towards me, fists clenched to his side, face red from screaming. I can feel the moisture on my face from his breath as he puts his face against my own. I can feel the tension in his chest and arms as they begin to push against me. I am there and the present disappears. 

I've heard in these times, it's "flight or fight". I spent to many years "flighting" and now, without meaning to, I go into "fight" mode. I am terrified. I am scared. I must survive and will do whatever it takes to do so. It's late 1999/early 2000 again, and my life and the lives of my children are in danger. I've forgotten where I truly am and who it is around me. I just must survive.

With the flashback over, I am fragile. I feel as if I'm a shattered glass held closely together by happenstance. The slightest wind, or cough, or step will send the shattered glass crumbling to the floor. I am raw....my emotions have rushed to the surface. I am vulnerable. I am weak. I cry out in heartache and despair. I am angry at myself for letting something that happened so very long ago sneak up and haunt me again. 

"They" say that time heals all wounds. I think I've been misinterpreting that wrong for many years. I don't think all wounds can heal. I think that some wounds will continue to haunt us until the day we day. Yet, I believe that one day, my wounds will heal. Not only will they heal, all scars will disappear and there will be no memory of the shoes I was forced to wear. I'll look in that room and see happy shoes. There will be only light filled corners and no darkness at all. 

 I look forward to that day. For now, I'm going to sit in my dark corner, surrounded by my shoes, and cry out for comfort and mercy.