part 83

I'm getting more used to being okay with who I am. I really am amazed at the power I gave to my mom and brother and sister - it hasn't even been very long since I broke things off with all of them, but I feel so much more objective now.

I think back only a few weeks and am surprised to recall how heavy their judgment weighed on me. It is nice to be free of it.

One time I heard a woman preface a statement by saying that most people do not like what she was about to say, particularly victims of child molestation. So, I got ready to be offended. What she said was that living in the pain and suffering of the past - no matter what your past is - is just feeling sorry for yourself.

I was surprised at how offended I wasn't. It has taken a long time to be able to acknowledge that I was a victim, and that the things done to me and what I saw happen to others wasn't my fault. I suppose in accepting that I was a victim meant that I had to accept the pain that came with it, too.

And oh my god - what pain. It has been excruciating. A nightmare. Oh my god.

I felt that pain, but instead of letting it go, I kept holding on to it. I needed it to remind me that what happened to me wasn’t fair, and that it wasn't right, and that I have a legitimate reason for how difficult it is for me to just cope on a daily basis.

It was my proof. It didn't matter what anyone else said about me or about the past, my pain was my proof that I was actually hurt. I was an innocent child and I was harmed in the most horrendous ways by my own parents. I wasn't making things up, making myself intentionally experience so much pain so that people would feel sorry for me, or to try and get something out of life that I don't actually deserve.

Hearing that woman say that - that holding onto that pain and living with it by my side every day was just me feeling sorry for myself - it occurred to me that she might be right. Of course I was offended, and I did not automatically achieve Zen once I got this idea into my skull, but it got me thinking in a different direction - and that's pretty significant.

It was one of many times I would have to re-learn that I can't change the past, but I can't pretend it never happened, either, and I definitely have a choice about how it would affect me NOW.

I used to cry whenever I heard anyone described as "damaged goods." I don't ever actually remember it being said about me (that I know of), but it's what I believed about myself, and just hearing the phrase made all the parts of me that were broken and breaking scream. I didn't want it to really be true, or at least known to anyone but me, and I spent my life trying to make that happen.

You know what happens when you're screaming and writhing in pain on the inside and trying to cover it up on the outside? A big crazy bitch is what happens. It takes a lot of narcissism and aggression to try to cover up that much pain.

I have gotten to a point where I can see that I have been a big crazy bitch in the past. I don't believe recognizing that makes it okay for me to have been a big crazy bitch, but I can certainly empathize with myself much easier. Learning how to empathize with myself has been a tremendously humbling process, and I truly believe it is one of those things that continues to develop as long as I'm alive - there's never going to be a point where I can say, "okay, I have perfected the art of empathizing with myself, so I don't have work on that anymore."

But finding the way to empathize with myself in the first place is another of those paradoxes: it is one of the most difficult and painful processes I have ever experienced, but it is simultaneously a gateway to beauty and peace I never imagined possible. It's taken a lot of work to get there, and I am almost to the point of not trying to work out whether the benefits are worth the work. I am almost to the point of just living in that beauty and peace, and being grateful for it without question.

So anyway, I hadn't realized how much my relationships with my mom and siblings were inhibiting that ability to live in beauty and peace. I realize it now, and maybe I am just continuing to be naïve and foolishly hopeful, but it is nice to think that my mom and siblings can recognize how much better I am without them in my life, and be happy for me, and just let me have that.

I think that would be some sort of proof that they do love me, that they love me enough to stay away and let me live without hindrance. I don't know - maybe I just like thinking that they love me enough to respect my boundaries, but it may be that they still find me disgusting and manipulative and crazy and dangerous, and are happy to have all of that out of their lives.

It is nicer to think they are respecting my boundaries out of love, but either way I am grateful for the peace I have in my life now, and that I don't have to carry around the mountains of shame that fell off me when I terminated my relationships with each of them.

I do still miss them. I still miss my dad, too, though. I guess its just another one of those things that comes with the territory of getting better. And I AM getting better - even I cannot make myself believe that I have not really conquered all of the things I have been able to conquer. That feels really good. Feeling good feels really good. It really, really does.