Whatever it is that you little survivor's heart wants to do, as long as you are not hurting anyone else, you should just go for it!
There is a lot of guilt which is accompanied with the idea that there is an entire population of people on this planet who can call themselves a survivor. I am one of them. I have survived an entire lifetime's worth of being hurt, of being rejected, of being told who I am, of things that are so ugly and torturous to the Soul that it is an amazing thing to me that I made it as far in my life to this point as I have.
Yet, the thing that no one who we are close with will tell us, that is, if they are not "in the know" of what is going on and more, if they are also not one who knows what it is like being someone else's victim, and what no one but us has the very right to do to or for us, is release us from the guilt of trying hard to be happy. When you are someone's victim you are made to feel like garbage, like you are the worst person on the planet because you do not feel bad for feeling good. Eventually, though, we end up repressing all the things that we really feel - like anger, resentment, and hostility, as well as joy, bliss and Love -because we are told that it is not okay for us to have our own thoughts. We are told that our thoughts are not worth the brain which produced them, and in a lot of cases, we are told that we don't have a brain in our heads so how dare we come up with an original thought...yes, if you were thinking that being messed up to the point where your thoughts are constantly jumbled, then yeah, you know what I am talking about.
You know well the idea that you feel like you constantly have to ask for permission, and when you get that permission, you think that you have to do whatever it is that you were going to do to peak perfection, and when whatever it is that you did is done, and you show people, some will think it is grand and great and there will be that one - the person who has abused you and made you feel like dirt - who will tell you that you could have done a better job. This is something that begins the feeling of need of approval, feel the need to beg for Love and for acceptance. Eventually, after we have done this so many times, it becomes a habit and then it becomes part of our daily routine. It is not long after this that it becomes part of who we are, or at least who we have been forced to become.
Then, one day, we decide that we aren't gonna take it (NO! WE AIN'T GONNA TAKE IT!!! ...gotta love Twisted Sister, right? Haha!) anymore....
The day that I decided that I was finished being married to this person, and regardless if he is still living under the same roof as I am, was the day that I seized back and to completion my human right to think on my own and without the threat or at least the feeling of the threat that is inherent in the thinking, period, of those who have been victimized. I knew that one day I would have to be the one to retake my power from this person and while I will not tell anyone that it was easy, I will say and promise anyone reading this or contemplating it to just go ahead and do it. Get your balls back, stiffen your backbone, and do what it is that thrills your Soul.
You asked for permission for too long...now give yourself the permission to be who you are, no matter what...the You who you are becoming will thank you for it
That anyone needs to get permission, namely an adult, from another adult, is ridiculous, but this is the reality of someone who is or was being abused. There will always be that feeling that somehow you are cheating someone else out of the best of you, but the truth is that you have been cheating you out of the best of you for a long, long time, and there is no need to ask for permission for you to be who you are.
When you come to the realization that you are not this person who you were abused into becoming, very suddenly you begin to feel the invisible chains which held you in place for so long finally and forgivingly just melt away. It takes a little time for a person to get used to the idea that they do not now and never had to ask anyone for permission for anything. It takes time for a person who is on their way to being a survivor time to undo all the brainwashing that they have undergone, and it takes time for an abuse survivor to step out and back into the world and to be courageously brave and become all who they really are.
All who you really are is someone who you have never not been - who you are, sadly, is part of the reason that you were abused. Your abuser told you over and over again that you were somehow wrong in being you. I am here to tell you that it is wrong to NOT be who you really are, and that you are robbing you of the goodness that you are entitled to. We are all entitled to our own Love, to our own best, and it is not up to someone else to make us feel like we are somehow responsible for the way that they feel. If someone else feels like they have to impede anyone else to feel good about themselves and so that they have control over a situation, they should be more compelled to fix themselves than to try to adjust someone else to fit their own fucked-upness. Seriously. I know, I make up a lot of my own words, but you, the reader, know what I am telling you. You know that you have the power, and more, the right to be yourself and to be comfortable in your own skin and in your own thoughts.
For a whole lot of years I dealt with being told that what I do - I am a dancer, a writer, and a Spiritual Counselor...and yeah...I work with indie rock bands...(Hey, I gotta do what I do and do what I love to do, right? Riiiight) is useless, is right up there with being a hooker, right up there with being a barfly, right up there with things and things that are not so right up there when speaking in terms of doing what we do, and I believed that he was right but not because I really believed him to be right but because I didn't know that I was not wrong. I was not wrong in loving to dance hula- it is the thing that I grew up doing, grew up to perform professionally, grew up to teach, and eventually was the thing that brought me to a place where I really needed to be, without any apology - back on the dance floor in front of the mirrors, dancing to my heart's content and my Soul's greatest elation.
I dearly needed to be who I really am, and while I was being abused I was not being who I really am. I was not allowed nor permitted to have friends, namely not guy friends, and I have a lot of guy friends. I was not allowed to have friends who were much bigger than I am in size and those friends had to pass his muster with looks...shallow prick....and I had to do jobs that were not in line with my Soul's purpose. When I realized that the reason that I felt so depressed, even though I had become what a lot of people would consider as being "the perfect wife," I still felt so small and insignificant and eventually I started drinking, a lot. To no avail, none of what I was told was the truth, but it hurt like hell and I believed it all.
I believed that I could not think on my own, and I obsessed over the idea that I was somehow not good enough. Well, I say to hell with that, and to hell with him, because I know better. I know that I am a good person, and I know, too, that I have a lot to offer the world in terms of things that I have gone through and emerged from far stronger and wiser than I had in the past. It is because I chose to do my own thing, to be me and fully present in my own life. I am not that great yet at fully living in the present moment, but this present moment I am cheering me on because I took back my power and took back the bullshit about feeling like I have to ask to be me, ask to do what I Love, ask to fulfill my life's mission and my purpose.
We all have a purpose, and right about now I am thinking that the only purpose at this very moment that I am fulfilling is to be that one voice of clarity that tells those who are in the middle of their own hell that if you should all so choose to at least think differently - and I know...man oh MAN do I know that it is really hard - about how things are for you right now, and should so choose to get help and to seek therapy and the company of those whose lives have been marred by the wrong doings of those who likely were also abused in their lives...if you should so choose to think on your own and choose to get help and to take the steps and to do the work required to make your life the beautiful thing that it is meant to be, you will notice that each day that passes is another day that you have lived, have survived. And when you choose to survive, to no longer wear the sadness that victims do, you, too, will know for sure that you were allowed, by your Self and your Soul, to be Who You really Are and have been all along.
It isn't your fault that you have gone through what you have, I promise it isn't.
I hope that one day you will believe me, because it is the truth. It took you a long time to become the clusterfuck that you became, and it is going to take you some time to return to your Self. When you get there, though, the view from the top is gorgeous...
No, really....gorgeous...
All you have to do is believe it....and then do what you have to do to get there. It isn't easy but it is way, way worth it
I LOVE YOU ALL !!
ROX
There is a lot of guilt which is accompanied with the idea that there is an entire population of people on this planet who can call themselves a survivor. I am one of them. I have survived an entire lifetime's worth of being hurt, of being rejected, of being told who I am, of things that are so ugly and torturous to the Soul that it is an amazing thing to me that I made it as far in my life to this point as I have.
Yet, the thing that no one who we are close with will tell us, that is, if they are not "in the know" of what is going on and more, if they are also not one who knows what it is like being someone else's victim, and what no one but us has the very right to do to or for us, is release us from the guilt of trying hard to be happy. When you are someone's victim you are made to feel like garbage, like you are the worst person on the planet because you do not feel bad for feeling good. Eventually, though, we end up repressing all the things that we really feel - like anger, resentment, and hostility, as well as joy, bliss and Love -because we are told that it is not okay for us to have our own thoughts. We are told that our thoughts are not worth the brain which produced them, and in a lot of cases, we are told that we don't have a brain in our heads so how dare we come up with an original thought...yes, if you were thinking that being messed up to the point where your thoughts are constantly jumbled, then yeah, you know what I am talking about.
You know well the idea that you feel like you constantly have to ask for permission, and when you get that permission, you think that you have to do whatever it is that you were going to do to peak perfection, and when whatever it is that you did is done, and you show people, some will think it is grand and great and there will be that one - the person who has abused you and made you feel like dirt - who will tell you that you could have done a better job. This is something that begins the feeling of need of approval, feel the need to beg for Love and for acceptance. Eventually, after we have done this so many times, it becomes a habit and then it becomes part of our daily routine. It is not long after this that it becomes part of who we are, or at least who we have been forced to become.
Then, one day, we decide that we aren't gonna take it (NO! WE AIN'T GONNA TAKE IT!!! ...gotta love Twisted Sister, right? Haha!) anymore....
The day that I decided that I was finished being married to this person, and regardless if he is still living under the same roof as I am, was the day that I seized back and to completion my human right to think on my own and without the threat or at least the feeling of the threat that is inherent in the thinking, period, of those who have been victimized. I knew that one day I would have to be the one to retake my power from this person and while I will not tell anyone that it was easy, I will say and promise anyone reading this or contemplating it to just go ahead and do it. Get your balls back, stiffen your backbone, and do what it is that thrills your Soul.
You asked for permission for too long...now give yourself the permission to be who you are, no matter what...the You who you are becoming will thank you for it
That anyone needs to get permission, namely an adult, from another adult, is ridiculous, but this is the reality of someone who is or was being abused. There will always be that feeling that somehow you are cheating someone else out of the best of you, but the truth is that you have been cheating you out of the best of you for a long, long time, and there is no need to ask for permission for you to be who you are.
When you come to the realization that you are not this person who you were abused into becoming, very suddenly you begin to feel the invisible chains which held you in place for so long finally and forgivingly just melt away. It takes a little time for a person to get used to the idea that they do not now and never had to ask anyone for permission for anything. It takes time for a person who is on their way to being a survivor time to undo all the brainwashing that they have undergone, and it takes time for an abuse survivor to step out and back into the world and to be courageously brave and become all who they really are.
All who you really are is someone who you have never not been - who you are, sadly, is part of the reason that you were abused. Your abuser told you over and over again that you were somehow wrong in being you. I am here to tell you that it is wrong to NOT be who you really are, and that you are robbing you of the goodness that you are entitled to. We are all entitled to our own Love, to our own best, and it is not up to someone else to make us feel like we are somehow responsible for the way that they feel. If someone else feels like they have to impede anyone else to feel good about themselves and so that they have control over a situation, they should be more compelled to fix themselves than to try to adjust someone else to fit their own fucked-upness. Seriously. I know, I make up a lot of my own words, but you, the reader, know what I am telling you. You know that you have the power, and more, the right to be yourself and to be comfortable in your own skin and in your own thoughts.
For a whole lot of years I dealt with being told that what I do - I am a dancer, a writer, and a Spiritual Counselor...and yeah...I work with indie rock bands...(Hey, I gotta do what I do and do what I love to do, right? Riiiight) is useless, is right up there with being a hooker, right up there with being a barfly, right up there with things and things that are not so right up there when speaking in terms of doing what we do, and I believed that he was right but not because I really believed him to be right but because I didn't know that I was not wrong. I was not wrong in loving to dance hula- it is the thing that I grew up doing, grew up to perform professionally, grew up to teach, and eventually was the thing that brought me to a place where I really needed to be, without any apology - back on the dance floor in front of the mirrors, dancing to my heart's content and my Soul's greatest elation.
I dearly needed to be who I really am, and while I was being abused I was not being who I really am. I was not allowed nor permitted to have friends, namely not guy friends, and I have a lot of guy friends. I was not allowed to have friends who were much bigger than I am in size and those friends had to pass his muster with looks...shallow prick....and I had to do jobs that were not in line with my Soul's purpose. When I realized that the reason that I felt so depressed, even though I had become what a lot of people would consider as being "the perfect wife," I still felt so small and insignificant and eventually I started drinking, a lot. To no avail, none of what I was told was the truth, but it hurt like hell and I believed it all.
I believed that I could not think on my own, and I obsessed over the idea that I was somehow not good enough. Well, I say to hell with that, and to hell with him, because I know better. I know that I am a good person, and I know, too, that I have a lot to offer the world in terms of things that I have gone through and emerged from far stronger and wiser than I had in the past. It is because I chose to do my own thing, to be me and fully present in my own life. I am not that great yet at fully living in the present moment, but this present moment I am cheering me on because I took back my power and took back the bullshit about feeling like I have to ask to be me, ask to do what I Love, ask to fulfill my life's mission and my purpose.
We all have a purpose, and right about now I am thinking that the only purpose at this very moment that I am fulfilling is to be that one voice of clarity that tells those who are in the middle of their own hell that if you should all so choose to at least think differently - and I know...man oh MAN do I know that it is really hard - about how things are for you right now, and should so choose to get help and to seek therapy and the company of those whose lives have been marred by the wrong doings of those who likely were also abused in their lives...if you should so choose to think on your own and choose to get help and to take the steps and to do the work required to make your life the beautiful thing that it is meant to be, you will notice that each day that passes is another day that you have lived, have survived. And when you choose to survive, to no longer wear the sadness that victims do, you, too, will know for sure that you were allowed, by your Self and your Soul, to be Who You really Are and have been all along.
It isn't your fault that you have gone through what you have, I promise it isn't.
I hope that one day you will believe me, because it is the truth. It took you a long time to become the clusterfuck that you became, and it is going to take you some time to return to your Self. When you get there, though, the view from the top is gorgeous...
No, really....gorgeous...
All you have to do is believe it....and then do what you have to do to get there. It isn't easy but it is way, way worth it
I LOVE YOU ALL !!
ROX
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