Again, it’s been a little while since I’ve blogged. I’ve had so many ideas and topics that I’ve wanted to write about, yet, I’ve been putting off actually getting them out. There is a part of me that believes that I’m insignificant. That what I have to say doesn’t really matter. It actually runs deeper then that. Sometimes I feel that life itself is meaningless. It’s not true of course. It’s just the way I’ve learned to cope in being abused and growing up to believe that my existence depended on putting others needs before mine. I never really understood the meaning of being emotionally taken care of. I always just looked for ways to please the people around me so that perhaps they would love me. It resulted in me pushing my needs and desires way down in order to get the love I so desperately needed. Though I have grown leaps and bounds, it still surfaces, I still go back to that kind of behavior. And when I’m in that place, I don’t want to write because I feel so invisible.

I’ve been reading the book “When the Body Says No” by Gabor Mate, M.D. What an incredible book! There is a chapter titled “The Power of Negative Thinking”. At first, I thought it was a play on words. I thought the chapter would explain how detrimentally powerful negative thinking is. I mean most of the books I read or things I hear talk about thinking positively. Yet, the author had a different take. They have found that people who just “think positively” when they are diagnosed with a disease and don’t react with anger are more likely to get sicker and die. Those are the same people who repress their emotions and don’t allow themselves to feel anything negative. It was eye opening.

I recently (as in still walking through it) had memories surface about an uncle who molested me. I’ve always know he molested me; however, we were both children when it happened (he’s 8 years older). So I always brushed it off as both of us being kids. Several months ago a memory started surfacing that happened when I was 12 and he was 20 (no longer a kid) and I just pushed it down. See, I idolized this uncle as a child. I thought he was the coolest person ever. And I didn’t want to believe that he did anything to me as an adult. It was just too painful to believe. I thought he loved me and believed in me. I wanted to hold on to the good and repress the painful truth.

I felt out of balance, far from God, and depressed. As I’ve allowed this memory to really surface and have started to process the feelings I find myself coming in to balance again. I’m angry and sad. Dealing with this is a painful reminder of the number of men who took advantage of me as a child. More then I care to count or to list. It’s a painful reminder of the dynamic of denial that has existed in my family for generations. Sometimes breaking this cycle of abuse feels like I’m left holding the bag and truthfully it feels unfair. Especially since I’ve been named as the crazy one in my family because I’ve spoken up. Reading the chapter in the book was exactly what I needed to remind myself to go to this place again and be angry and sad. I won’t stay here. Yet, I need to go here so that I can get to the other side. I need to shake my fist and ask why. It’s healthy and it’s healing.

Thinking about the situation negatively allows me to feel all the emotions that I need to feel. It gives me permission to be angry and to exercise good self care. Sure, I could say that all this happened so that I can use it for good. Yet, would that really be honoring the child that experienced the pain? Would that be truthful? Not entirely. I will get there. Yet, not by circumventing the process of truthful expression. Give yourself permission. It’s okay.