Where is Air

    A few weeks ago I was at the park, out for a run, believing that my lack of time exercising in the last year would have no impact on my ability to sprint. When I say I was running you may mistake my words for the literal definition instead of the figurative meaning I am implying. I mean I was running, well jogging would probably be a more accurate title, but I was desperate to get away from all the hurt and despair and hopelessness that felt like bags of sand attached to each ankle. I wanted to run from the pain that felt like it was killing me alive. I began to jog and for the first few miles I was painfully holding pace and then a sharp pain screamed at me from my side. The urge to hold in each breath hit me like bricks because with every breath the sharp pain roared to life and the thing I was doing to stop the pain was now the source... and the thing that would ultimately bring healing to the stitch in my side, breathing, felt like the very thing that was at the root of it all.
   There are days like today when breathing feels as useless as the idea of swimming the ocean in it's entirety. I have found myself again desperately seeking help and freedom from this eating disorder and instead of feeling hope I feel nothing but the lack there of. I don't understand how it is possible to want something so desperately, to seek it with such ambition and to find myself covered in the fingerprints of my indulgence. As humans, when we are in pain, we find a way to make it stop. It is honestly a instinct of survival and for me it has turned into a seduction unto death. I find myself broken tonight. I have put myself in a place where people are making decisions that they believe are best for me and yet those decisions feel like the pain of the abandonment and rejection I was running from to begin with. I put myself in this position where I don't have a voice. I am the patient and they the professionals get to tell me that I am wrong about my theory that punishment based consequences do not motivate me unto recovery...but instead they reinforce the pain that is there to begin with. I go along with it because I am taught that my opinion doesn't matter because I am blinded by my illness, or that it matters but it doesn't change the contract being put in place. How am I supposed to leave and be in a place where I can make decisions based on my intuition instead of having to look to an exterior source for guidance. How does this not continue the cycle of doing whatever I am told as to not have love and care withheld from me. I am broken into pieces, running from that which is myself...running, running, running until breathing becomes too sharp and furious and staying alive is no longer worth the air that keeps me surviving. I just want to stop running. I just want to stop breathing.

Why

Why

Asking me why I do the things I do is similar, in my opinion, to asking me why I wear a seat-belt when I am driving, why I wear a helmet when riding a bike. Each time I fasten my seat-belt I don’t stop and think to myself, I am going to wear this because it will protect me in a car crash. I guess if I stop and think about it that is the reason. However it is so automatic, so reinforced by repetition, that it is just part of the process of getting from one location to the next. I do it because I know it keeps me safe.

There is really no rhyme or reason to the rules that I follow, other than knowing that when I don’t follow them I feel unsafe. My heart pounds, my hands shake...I feel like someone is asking me if i want to be a horrible and disgusting person and if I just accept it, it would be choosing to be unlovable. Food is neutral to me in that it doesn’t sound appealing and revolting to me in that it bares its mark on me as evidence of my weakness. It is like having sex with someone you are afraid of or don’t want to be with at all...or for me it is sleeping with anyone ever.  After it’s over the act itself has happened, but the feelings it leaves you with are just beginning. In the moment, before it happens, you might say to yourself this is normal, this might feels good, this might be ok. And inevitably there is this moment when everything shifts and it, this demon inside of you, feels like it is choking the air from your lungs and it’s not ok and it feels anything but normal… but it’s too late. Saying no is futile. The chance to politely refuse has long since passed. The demon has awakened and the evidence of your choice is palpable. It is there is the sweat of his body. Its there in the sickness that screams in the pit of your stomach. It’s there in the inability to stop shaking. It’s evidence lingers as proof of everything you want to hide. So you try to slow it down, pretend to fall asleep or just be a body to be used. Or maybe you speed it up, trying to get it over with as soon as possible. But in the end it really doesn’t matter...in the end you will just be left with the demon that haunts you until he returns again.

Food may seem normal in the moment. It may taste good and may seem to be okay. But then it goes into my mouth, into my body, and that same demon awakens. But this one I thought I had mastered. I learned to stay away from it, to control it, to not be enticed and everything went still. Everything went numb. But, that was until I found that once again, the trick was on me. I needed it to survive. But going back to it felt like embracing, welcoming, even becoming one with the demon. The feelings of disgust, of sickness, of guilt and shame all came roaring back to life as the evidence remained far after the food was consumed. My hands would smell of it. My mouth would taste of it. My stomach would feel it, as though impregnated by the devil himself. I was sure people could smell it on me, know that it was my choice and know that it was my fault. But the worst part wasn’t the evidence people could see or smell. The worst part is the unbearable weight that lingers inside me. The shame of knowing it was my choice. The inability to unfeel it, unthink it, or unsee it. The decision to do and feel what you detest the most, knowing it the only thing that will save your life, feels not only unbearable, but also incriminating of becoming everything you never wanted to be. So to rip things into pieces makes it feel smaller, makes me feel in charge of the amount i put into my mouth, almost as if to demolish it and slowly allow it will make me feel like there is always a chance to stop, to say no. For food to get on my hands, grease, oil, anything really, is to be unable to rid myself of tangible evidence. I can see the condemnation on my hands and the demon gets louder faster. It is worse if it is white. To pick the lowest calorie option is to choose the least bad, to be the least bad...out of all the evil, you pick the smallest demon, the one that does the least amount of harm. Sometimes you eat as slow as possible to try and indirectly stop it from getting as far. Sometimes, you just eat what you know you will fast to get it over with. More often than not you go lifeless, trying desperately to disappear, to make your body just a body and keep your soul from being a part of it. So I let it sit in front of me and I occasionally take bites, I do what is asked and go through the motions, because I have resigned to what is needed of me, and still try to do enough to get by without fully giving over my soul completely. That way I can at least try to tell myself that I didn’t want for this to happen. I can pretend I fought against it so that I don’t feel like I have become the perpetrator. If I go through all the motions maybe I can trick myself and others into thinking I am not the evil that I have become. I am not the darkness that constantly tries to consume me… the darkness I fear will then consume others through me.

Are there times it becomes about my body and my weight and my appearance? For sure. Are there aspects of things that are just flat out eating disordered? Of course. But I guess I feel like it is easier for me to tell someone I just want to be thin, than it is for me to tell them I want to disappear. It is easier to explain food scares me because it will make me fat, than it is for me to tell them it leaves me feeling used and violated. It is easier for people to think it is about a certain number, than it is to explain to them that I am desperate to say no. No  to the evil. No to the one who is bigger and stronger than me. No to the evidence it leaves behind, covering my body, leaving its fingerprints,claiming me as it prize. I am desperate to say no to the hell without my no killing me.  I am trying to say no so that I can one day, maybe, just maybe,  be clean enough to be loved...to be wanted...to be good.        

So yes, I chew gum after I eat to get rid of the taste in my mouth, but really it’s to get rid of the evidence inside my head that I gave in. I spray body spray on me after I eat a meal in hopes that no one will smell it on me when they get too close. Most of the time I always refuse a little bit so I can convince myself I still tried to not give in. I wash my hands so they don’t carry any reminders of the choices I made. I walk to try and run from the noise inside my head...the feelings of being a disgusting whore that chooses to be used, that will never do anything but take up space. I walk or run from the darkness that tells to just let go and give in to death. I try to escape from the little girl inside me that is incessantly screaming to be held and protected and who I have no capacity to do either of those things for. I’m doing the best i can with what I have but what I have is not enough. Trust me, I know that. I am empty and scared and I want someone to save me from the memories that consume me. I want someone to flip the switch in my brain that would make food just food. I want eating to stop feeling like I am being violated by choice. I want the memories to fade away. I want life to grow from ashes. I want to find a way to somehow, someway, to say no the evil, and say yes to my voice and my body being my own. I want to someday be free.

Crumbs

Outside of the walls is a battlefield. The sound of gun shots fill the air as people scream, pleading for their lives to be spared. Women and children are raped, pinned to the ground, crying for their release.Blood coats the streets and predators lurk, waiting for weaknesses to be exposed. When it is time she crawls through the brick wall disguised as a fireplace in an abandoned building outside the city walls. She is covered from head to toe in a black cloak, her cloak of invisibility. There are rules to stay invisible, to stay safe and unseen as she indulges in her nightly routine. She follows them meticulously, as if her life, and the lives of those she loves depend on it...because they do. It is midnight, and she has an hour to accomplish all that she must do. She walks the abandoned streets, gathering crumbs as she goes, only to return to her cage within the hidden walls, return to her only known source of safety. In the midnight hour she gathers small pieces of the glow of the moon, the only light she has available to her, crumbs to place in the basket she carries. Her first stops are the houses of the ones she loves, getting close enough to feel their presence, but never chancing them really seeing her in return. There are nights where she indulges, peering into the windows and watching them sleep and she feels comfort in their safety. She takes those crumbs and places them in her basket. The next stop is the marketplace. During the day vendors line the streets, selling fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, and baked goods. She knows there are others like herself so she picks up only her share of the scraps,never taking more than she deems fair. Perhaps an apple that has fallen to the ground or pieces of bread that have been left behind. On a special night she might find a full loaf someone intentionally left behind. She breaks off a small portion, leaving the rest for those in need. She takes those crumbs and adds them to her collection. The next stop is where the stray animals gather, or perhaps the small orphans with no other place to call home. Even they, as mammals, find comfort on the unity of their fellow unwanted or abandoned group. She takes pieces off the break or the fruit she has brought and offers them food. She nourishes and holds each one, even returning to the marketplace if she runs out. She soaks in the comfort and touch the animals and children provide and places those crumbs inside her basket. The midnight hour is almost over and she has one last stop to make before returning to her cage. Quietly, silently, she makes her way to his house, to the darkness that has banished her from the city walls. She can hear the screams before she can even see the light from his windows and she remembers her own. When a young child’s voice pleads in the night air she falls to her knees, frozen in place. She listens there every night to remind herself of the reason she seeks refuge in her cold caged walls...to remind herself of the pain, the suffering, the cost of the light, and she takes those crumbs and adds them to her basket. Little does she know that the screams she hears are only those that live inside of her, the child locked inside her own heart. She realizes then that there are only minutes before the clock strikes 1, until she becomes visible to the world around her. She quickly stands and runs toward  the abandoned house outside the city gates. She sneaks into the hidden doorway, disguised as a brick fireplace. Then exhausted, she crawls back into her cage. As she begins to drift off to sleep her longings run wild. She longs and is desperate for someone to come to her cage, to hold her as she sleeps amidst the nightmares and the darkness. She longs to be able to lay in the sunlight and feel the warmth of its rays. She longs to go to the marketplace without fear and take the fresh fruits and vegetables, the warm baked goods, and to feed herself before feeding the unwanted. She longs to be connected at all times and to be surrounded by people but not be afraid. The longings begin to feel out of control. She starts to become too desperate, too willing to do whatever it takes to have those desires met. She takes a handful of her crumbs and swallows them, convincing herself they are enough to sustain her cravings because allowing others to know these desires places them in control, allowing them to control and manipulate her. Before she can convince herself that it is worth the risk she reaches over and presses play on the old tape deck beside her head. The screams and gunshots begin to fill the air again and she drifts to sleep as the longings and desires subside. No one wants to live in that world because the danger is unspeakable, that, she reminds herself, is the world of her childhood...His world where he runs free. She lives in a cage, safe and in control of her world. A world of rules and predictability, a world of crumbs that sustain her. It is there that she can live free, trapped only in the prison of her mind.   

Words

Words. All they are, all they ever will be, are words. Broken down into tiny pieces you find syllables and letters, substantiating nothing but small sounds. We have high expectations for these sounds, stringing them together to try and communicate our thoughts and beliefs in order to free the mind from the magnitude and complexity of the data that thrusts itself upon us all, every second of every day. To think of it all at once, the enormity of this world, is overwhelming and paralyzing. I used to think about eternity as a child, typical that I, as a child would be thinking of such things. In Sunday school they would teach us that we would live in heaven forever one day, time unending, and it would bring me to tears. Not the "yay for never being afraid again, playing with friends and eating ice cream all day long joyous sort of tears," but tears of terror. I can't think of anything in the entire world that I want to last forever, without end. To this day, the concept gives me far more anxiety than it should. Literally I am going to have to change the subject because I can feel my chest tightening and my heart rate increasing and now I can’t breathe. Dear Lord I hate being this crazy. All that to say It drives me insane when I stop to think about the fact that I am so incredibly overwhelmed and there is all this awful stuff that happened that I am supposed to talk about, and it all comes down to me having to depend on letters and sounds to articulate these feelings that I know will never have the capability to encapsulate the depth of what is going on. And in that realization it all makes me want to hide in my closet and never come out. Ever.

In my session today I was talking to Sam about this weird phenomenon that happens to me from time to time that drives me crazy...quite literally. I have always been very sensitive to the things that I watch. From a young age I couldn’t watch things with intense emotion or violence or anything of that nature without having nightmares. But in my teenage years it got worse. I have this memory of being away at college watching a movie with my boyfriend of two years or so over at his brother’s apartment. He was aware of my sensitivity and so we normally picked out movies together but we got to his brothers and found out we were watching legends of the fall. I was able to sit through the movie but all the while I was feeling like I wanted to die. That sounds dramatic, I know, but that is the weird feeling I am talking about. I smiled, I pretended to be normal, but the minute we reached his car I had a total meltdown. I was hysterically sobbing, engaged in a full panic attack, and I couldn’t explain why. I just kept saying, why did you let that happen? I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I didn’t really blame him. But I felt so emotionally overwhelmed that I literally wanted to die. This world is SO big and SO unpredictable and filled with SO much gut wrenching pain and I didn’t want to live in that constant fear of when the next bad thing was going to happen. But I felt trapped in it, unable to escape. So I avoided intense movies. I avoided awful sad stories. I avoided anything that brought about that feeling that someone was waiting behind the next corner and that they were going to pin me down and strangle me because I was walking too fast or too slow or talking too loud. Or maybe it would be because I was just too pretty or too nice. You see there was no rule book to follow, so I avoided it all. I was defective and crazy and hiding in closets is not how grownups behave, so I overcompensated in other areas to prove my self sufficiency, my independence. I was an actress of sorts, pretending to be a normal fearless adult, it was my leading role. So this weird want to die feeling, it happens all the time. But, when it happened again last night I was caught off guard. I sort of knew the story line of Phantom of the Opera, and didn’t remember it being particularly sad. I didn’t expect that sitting so close, with all the special effects (fireworks, bursts of flames, explosions, etc) would trigger my PTSD so strongly. I actually thought, by the end of the night, all things considered I had handled my stupid startle response quite well. But the moment I got into my car I wanted to die. Literally. I can’t handle this world. I can’t handle the anxiety of not knowing what is going to happen next. It is all too big and I feel so very small and everything feels so out of my control and all I am left with are words and they aren’t enough to articulate this feeling...it’s this feeling that is so familiar and so tangible and so palpable that I can literally taste it. Its incapacitating. As I drove home my whole body was trembling. I felt so sad for the Phantom and how alone he was. I was overwhelmed that I had to say goodbye to my mom before her vacation back east on Saturday. I again felt like this world is awful and horrible and then you die and there is eternity and I am trapped and stuck and I have this defect that I can’t tolerate it. Why am I so crazy? Why can other people tolerate it and I can't? So as I sat and thought about it last night it brought me back to something Lori said recently. She was talking about how people with eating disorders use their eating disorder as a voice and ultimately use it as a way to have people take care of them and meet the needs they can’t articulate...or at least that is what I heard, so something to that effect. (Which, I might add, I was annoyed with because it implied that I was just trying to get attention.) But then I had this realization of how that did in fact fit for me...or a version of it I guess. My eating disorder has been my parent for as long as I can remember. I was never too much for it. When I was afraid or overwhelmed it would help numb the intense feelings. Since I didn’t have the words to articulate the intensity of what was going on the eating disorder DIDN'T NEED WORDS, it just understood and took the pain away. It wouldn’t use my fears against me and it certainly wouldn’t die and abandon me. No, it held me. It protected me. It shielded me from the people who hurt me. It made me feel more attractive so that I felt more in control of men, instead of men controlling me. It took away the hell inside my head and made this big scary crazy world feel somewhat manageable...as long as I avoided strong emotions. It allowed me to function instead of curling up into a corner of a closet and become a puddle, a worthless and useless non functioning member of society. It enabled me to be a highly functioning, intelligent, compassionate human being. And I hate to admit it, but on days like yesterday, when my defect was in full swing, I didn’t want to let go of it. I didn’t want to recover. Anorexia has been the parent I never had and no one else can really ever be there for me...understand me without words. Protect me.  Because in my brain recovery is very lonely. I can’t call you or anyone at all hours of the night when the memories are raging. I can’t depend on people to protect me, because there is no such thing as protection. So I ended my night last night by praying to want to want freedom...because right now, in the midst of all the pain...some days I don’t want it. And i’m sure you are thinking, you are a grown ass woman, you can protect yourself. You don’t need anyone else to save you, save yourself. Don't act like a helpless victim. But the problem is that this is how I have been doing that. It’s not right, but neither is laying on that bed, knowing something bad was coming, but not having any idea of how long it would take for him to return or what kind of torture he would invent this time. And I got to choose to live with those. Instant memories, or be numb. So as I talked to Sam about my defect today and asked her what could possibly be wrong with me because I always feel so damn...and then I stopped as it hit me. I stopped talking and just looked at her. "It all just came together didn’t it," Sam asked. All I could do is nod my head. "Because you always feel so YOUNG" She questioned? Why do all roads lead back to that same stupid place. To that small little girl? The world felt so out of control and so mean and so scary and so awful and there weren’t words...there still aren’t words. I just wanted to die and intense emotions bring it all back. All of it. And who is safe when no one is safe? Damn it all...because saying what words I have doesn't help. I have said them and nothing has changed. Is there any hope?  All I know right now is that I am desperate for a life other than the one I have been living. But some days, I don’t know if I have enough courage to risk the world strangling me from behind one more time. I am not a helpless victim, the world being my abuser. No. Instead I feel like a 4 year old trying to be a grown up and she is in charge and I don't understand why. Some days I think I just might close my eyes and wake up to find out it was all just a horrible dream...and I have been given the miracle to do it all over again. This time i would do it right. I promise. Because I would choose a different path. But I'm scared it's too late. What is wrong with me? I just can't tolerate feeling this young, this out of control, and this needy any longer. Help me find a way to save myself or to medicate away this indescribable feeling...it's too much and I can't be left alone with only words to survive.

The Body Remembers

      It moves in quickly with an intensity that can't be mistaken. A heavy fog rolling in, darkening, misting, adding a weight to everything it touches, every single thing in its wake. Driving with my lights on my vision is impaired and I slow, knowing I can't see much past the hood of my car. A city, a place that on a clear and sunny day I know inside and out, has become a mystery. I am at it's mercy.
   Desolate grief has moved in on me today much like the fog outside my window. I go about my daily motions, my daily schedule, one that I know so well, and yet every move I make takes added effort...and I know it shouldn't surprise me. I know there is plenty going on in my life right now that warrants the heaviness, the pain. Its presence, nonetheless, is an unwelcome guest, one I have asked to go away, and stay away, more times than I can count. So when she opened my bedroom door this afternoon and crawled into bed with me, I said nothing. Fighting with her took more energy than I had to spare. Instead I simply prayed she would go away. With her touch came memories. She brought me back to a year ago, working with Sam at Monarch, beginning to talk, hesitantly try to accept, the reality... the hell that was endured by that small child. She reminded me of the hope that sparked as things started to improve and yet of the gut wrenching pain... of the nights that I was literally in a ball in the closet of my bedroom sobbing from the weight of the pain, the pain of remembering. Grief then changed directions and took me back to that dreaded day, sitting on the couch with my mom and sisters, time standing still as mom told us through broken sobs that daddy was in heaven with Jesus. The memories were coming faster now racing back and forth from recent months and years to that stupid little girl doing everything she was told. Grief took me to sitting alone with my grandma at her facility in January putting cool cloths on her head and helping to re position her failing body to help her breathing become less strained, talking to hospice about how many more days, more hours she thought she had left...calling my mom to ask her if she wanted to come sit with her, because they weren't sure she would make it through the night. No, my mom said, I can't stand seeing her this way. Grief then took me to the evening when I would be the replacement for pornography, helping my boyfriend at the time abstain from his addiction, I became the filth to ease his conscious. The day my mom sat me down to say she had cancer and then the rape at the music studio in pacific grove, the white sign out on the curb as advertisement to the community for lessons, for me as an advertisement that my no means nothing. That's enough I finally say to grief. Stop touching me, stop cuddling against me for comfort as if I can tolerate everything you bring. If you must stay go sit somewhere else...and for God's sake stop crying. As she moves herself to sit against the wall I can't help but wonder what I did to invite her presence. She normally doesn't show up unprovoked, especially when anorexia is close by. The ice cold drug of numbness that anorexia spreads keeps most parts away. So I  make a mental scan of my last 24 hours, trying to find a reason, and then it hits me. The book. That stupid book. Those stupid words.
    I had been working the night before with the fussy newborn and she was finally asleep. I logged into Amazon to shop and as it often does, it so kindly highlighted some suggestions of merchandise, things relating to past purchases that I had once indulged in. And, in the late hours of the night or the early hours of the morning, some would contend, I naively enrolled in something called Amazon student. A free 6 month trail enticed by free two day shipping sounded very appealing at 3 am. Books, it must have concluded. As a student, she must want suggestions of books. The last book I had purchased on that account had clearly been strongly encouraged by a therapist, some sort of PTSD workbook. Now, Amazon, displayed a book it thought i might like to try next. The title? The body remembers: The Psycho physiology of trauma and trauma treatment. The world stood still. The body remembers. Those three words spun through my mind and wrecked havoc on my heart. No. I screamed inside my mind. All sorts of my parts came to life. It might not be real I contended! It might not have happened. It might all be made up. None of it is true. And an almost audible voice would repeat the title once more. THE BODY REMEMBERS. All the memories- the smells that illicit a gag like reflex, the food on my hands that makes it hard to breath, the sound of running water, the taste and sight of blood ...And then the baby started crying. That newborn cry that cuts through your heart and makes every mother move into motion to sooth that pure innocence. I threw down my phone where I had been searching Amazon and scooped her up, placing her small head against my chest, hoping the sound of my beating heart would calm her until I could get her bottle made and her diaper changed. Shhhhhhhhhhh, I soothed her. It's ok and I seamlessly got her formula ready, diaper changed, and swaddled her it bitty body and fed her then quietly rocked her back to sleep. I forgot the book. I forgot that steady voice inside my head repeating those three dreaded words. With the baby in my arms it all went away.
  That I concluded is why grief was sitting in the corner of my room. That was why she appeared. I knew it took a lot for her to remain present with anorexia...so strangely I knew her message was important. It's true, was all she said. Other parts sent me and they want you to know, they remember. Our body... Your body... Even if you won't admit to it. The body remembers and it won't forget..

Fearless

        It was a hot and humid August day in 2009.  From far below I could hear them yelling to me. "Just jump! Stop thinking about it and just do it!" Friends and total strangers floated in rafts or were actively treading water, staring up at me from the cool blue Chatahoochi river. I would run to the edge of the small cliff and stop, just before my toes would leave the dirt beneath them and nervously laugh. Stop, and take a few steps backwards. Others offered to show me once again how safe the jump would be and they, mostly attractive twenty something year old men would, run full speed ahead and let out an obnoxious battle cry or sorts and jump into the water below. Frustrated groans would leave my lips and then I heard it. It wasn't intended to be an insult or an accusation. But, nonetheless, I heard those three dreaded words. "She's too scared." Something in the pit of my stomach spun itself into knots and the noise in my brain erupted. It was true. I was too scared. Cliff jumping into God knows how deep of water was terrifying and it was WATER...but what was more terrifying was the thought of those people knowing one of my weaknesses, one of my vulnerabilities. Pretend, I silently shouted to myself. Turn off your emotions and preserve the one thing no one can take away from you. Self control. Give nothing away. Reveal nothing unless it is for the purpose of manipulation of safety. Don't smile and for the love of all that is good don't cry. And in a quick flash she appeared.
      She was tiny when she learned that brilliant piece of information. Fear, weakness, and most of all vulnerabilities were used for one thing, and one thing alone. Bribery. He knew I was powerless when it came to wanting to protect my family. He knew I was putty in his large hands when he spoke of the evil that would seep out and destroy others if I refused. The things I hated the most seemed to make him come alive. The tears and the struggle enticed and provoked. So I learned that the only thing more destructive than the actions themselves was allowing him to read me like a book, handing him over the secret ways to destruct me in seconds. My weakness, my fears, my tears became my greatest vulnerability and as such became my greatest weapon. I found a way to hide behind my eyes, become small and become as lifeless as a doll, and while it didn't make it stop, it gave me power.
      Food, for whatever reason has been entangled with my fear of weakness. When I eat, when I choose to put food in my body I feel as though I am opening the book once more, giving those around me a step by step battle plan on how to find and devour my very heart and what is left of my mangled soul. With each bite of food I feel as though I am choosing for it to happen, going back when at first I felt special, loved enough to be destroyed. I begin to feel sick and it becomes hard to stay grounded. Those God given warning signs that are overridden so often, blare to a deafening roar and it is my fault. It is all my fault. And I melt. I am putty in the hands of  my internal perpetrator, the part that I often wonder if I have created out of the evil that lurks inside of me. So I keep her there. That blonde haired, blue eyed, filthy child. Locked in a cell, a prisoner of war. Shut up I scream to her. You need nothing. Pretend it never happened so that we can find a way to live. I myself sit outside the prison walls, weak and exhausted...dirty from laying on the cold cement outside, keeping guard. Though I hate her i protect her, knowing if she wound up in the wrong hands she would allow it to happen all over again. Please i whisper, please just go to sleep. Starvation sings her a calming lullaby as depression strokes her hair. I watch from afar and allow it...too tired to fight back. I so all of this for you, you know? And then i hear those words, those same words he had said to me back then and I shiver. But she is asleep now and my eyes get heavy as well. Perhaps sleep will bring peace?
        So on that hot august day I ran. I turned off my brain and my fear and all those warnings of impending danger that God gave us as a human race in order to prolong and preserve life, and I ran. I didn't scream and I didn't squeal. Instead I smiled, reminding myself this was how I held on to power, this is how I stay safe. As the cold water embraced me my heart pounded in my chest. I felt sick because I knew jumping once was simply not going to be convincing enough. So as I swam to the surface I made myself laugh. That was amazing, I cried out! I have to do it again. Tears began to build and I could hear her whimper. Not now, I screamed at her. Not. Now. I am too busy trying to keep you safe! So I swam to the edge of the rocks and pulled myself out to begin my climb back to the top. Self control I whispered to myself. Self control is safety.

The Secret Keeper

Its a task that feels unbearable, and yet when there is no choice but to do it, adaptation is not optional. To be the secret keeper, the one who holds life and death, light and darkness, not just for myself, but for those i cannot survive without...there is no option but silence. Silence became so important, so imperative that words disappeared, as if they didn’t exist at all. The memories remain so vivid, the smell of sweat, his breath tickling my nose, the taste of blood is so tangible and yet no words exist...as though it is a movie being played in another language with things that don’t quite translate, perhaps a superhuman survival skills that prevented me from speaking even if i became weak. It is a solitary confinement, torturing me unto insanity...if only i could be insane...maybe then i wouldn’t have the lucidity and functionality to care what others think, what others believe. If only I could be so crazy that I could lose all rational thinking and have the voices inside my head to talk to me, maybe they could understand, break the language barrier and provide the comfort that was taken with the eating disorder. The starvation pressed the mute button in my brain and I could close my eyes and an eerie silence would wrap me in a cold blanket. Shivering from the ice surrounding me i gladly traded the deafening screams in a foreign language for the intolerable chill that numbed me to my very core.

Now the volume has returned and I can see the pictures, smell the smells, hear the running water, feel the torture and you say to me, you are safe. But nothing about what I am experiencing is safe. Nothing I feel is safe. I look into a mirror and I see her small body and her tear stained face, the absolute terror in her eyes that is masked in emptiness, as if to give nothing away...as if she knew he had already taken her very soul...desperate for safe arms to provide respite from the hell she had walked through...but instead there is silence.

Why admit to needs that can’t be met. To long for something is to risk destruction. To have the  desperation of a 4 year old longing to be held and comforted, longing for the harsh reality of what is withheld because of the understanding of age induced innocence...to want that when you are a grown woman is impossible.

To say it isn’t fair is to subscribe to the belief system that equality can be achieved and in other words, it  would be meaningless. I don’t align with a victim mentality or expect the world to repay me for its undue harshness. I do, however, find it difficult to comprehend why I am expected to want to remain alive, continue to hold breath in my lungs when to live simply means continually re-experiencing everything I have lost. Some of those losses are common to every person that inhabits this fallen world. Anniversaries that bring to light the absence of my hero, my father who departed from my life and this world as we know it, when I was twelve. Painful breakups, friendship betrayals, death and jealousy. Those are things I can remember with sadness on occasion and still remain optimistic about a future containing potential  joy. But it’s the bathroom floor that shakes me. It’s the knife against my throat and the blood on my hands that spins a room so quickly that it rewinds time and there I am and there he is.  It is the dark closet where i sought refuge only to learn that to disobey is far worse than to submit, become one with evil and the pain isn't as palpable. It is there, in that submission, that I became sin, became silence, became darkness. While hope on occasion shines through a tiny crack of a cement prison cell where I am locked away from society like a wild animal, it is simply not enough. It is a crumb of food for a starving body. What good would it do for me to expect a feast, to long for ongoing sustenance when I know I cannot survive off of what I can be given. Wouldn’t my brain rather expect nothing, have nothing, than to barely hold on to life, be tortured with a failing body only to survive another day? Add in having no voice, no ability to communicate in any other way than to slowly fade from existence, becoming one with emaciation ...  chancing someone might see the disfigured animal I have become and read between the lines. Perhaps then I won’t break the rules, no one will have to die, and someone can see, physically see  the anguish and wrap me in a blanket and resuscitate life...love me unto ongoing hope. But when you restore the physical weight on to me, I have no voice. I become the fattened cow awaiting the slaughter. It is here that I truly disappear into the eternal hell of perpetual flashbacks, of a lifetime of molestation and rape, and no one will ever hear me or see me...because my real voice kills and destroys those I love. Instead my body will forever be a shoe to be put on, worn, and then discarded. I understand how to exchange what I am worth for love. That exchange has cost me everything.

To be a secret keeper is to sell your soul. So if you are, in fact,  a fellow secret keeper I would beg you to never leave the proverbial abduction spot with the kidnapper. Scream, yell, make a scene and chance being killed right then and there. That is heroic because, so they say, rarely do you survive being taken to a second location. Rarely do his promises come to fruition. Your only chance to be found alive is to be anything but silent.        

Rewind

All I ever seem to do is look behind me.
Always wishing wanting praying for a change.
Still nothing ever changes as I stare at this blank page.
One more step I cross that same old line.
I'm tired of living my life in rewind

Rewind. Should have never told her story
Rewind. Should have said no from the start.
Rewind. wish I had Hugged him one more time before his life here was gone...instead of looking back and whispering this song. Rewind.

The only thing that I change is right now.
Looking back just steals away today.
Why does it seem so righteous to keep punishing mistakes
 as if the shame will somehow take me back in time. Oh I'm so tired of living in rewind.

Rewind. Should have never told her story.
Rewind. Should have said no from the start.
Rewind. I wish I had hugged him one more time before his life here was gone...instead of looking back and whispering this song. Rewind.

Don't hold onto your hatred let forgiveness fall like rain
May tear drops be your healing, it will somehow ease that pain
Find a way to love yourself when mistakes make you feel small
Remember there is hope and there is healing for it all

Rewind. Time to write a brand new story.
Rewind. My voice will now be heard.
Rewind. I will live my life  each day knowing I'm right where I belong,
instead of looking back and whispering this song. Rewind.

searching for peace

 I find myself constantly searching. Searching for love, for happiness, for relationships. My idea of trusting in God is praying when my heart is heavy and then expecting Him to change my situation instead of changing my heart. So I'm exhausted. Constantly. Waiting for the next thing that will come into my life and make me happy...or at least fill that void that daily seems to grow deeper and stronger. I tried surrendering. I tried telling God that I only needed Him hoping that would help Him to bring my husband even sooner. Funny how God always seems to know when I'm trying to play mind games. So I decided I was going to try and start being honest with Him. I decided I would pray what my heart is really thinking and wanting and also praying for my heart to change as He changes me. I decided being real and open would probably get me further than  hoping I could outwit the God of the universe. And since then there has been this peace. It goes in waves of course. My brain is wired to be anxious about everything instead of anxious for nothing. So its a process of reminding myself that searching for things in this world will leave me tired and lonely. I will feel lost and hopeless...powerless to make the changes I want. So I am learning to long to know His comfort. I long to trust Him...to believe Him at His word. So once again tonight I surrender my will to His. I surrender my timing to His. I surrender my anxiety and instead petition for His peace...which He says will surpass all understand. I guess it's time to stop searching and time to fall to my knees. My healer. My Savior. My peace.

Father God I want to know your heart for me. I long to believe that you are closer than my next breath...help me comprehend your love. I'm so afraid Lord of being alone forever. I'm so afraid I have messed up my life beyond repair. But I know you are in control. I know you love me. I know you want the best for my life. So I entrust myself to you. Lord let these be more than words...let them be the cry of my heart and let my actions reflect the knowledge of your truth. I believe you are there. Hold me as I sleep. Encourage my heart and speak over me the plans you have for my life. I surrender.

to forget

I forgot about this blog. In the insanity of my life I got lost and found myself running in every direction longing to have an outlet for my heart...but i forgot. My heart is in shambles once again. My head throbs as I try and tell myself that everything will be ok...im tired of telling myself it will be ok... I just want it to be ok. I feel lost and alone. I feel like the person I love is stringing me along as he tries to figure out what direction to head with his life...and in my lack of self esteem, i ride this train as it heads straight off a cliff. I just keep praying against all odds the breaks will screech and the train will turn a new direction. I know it won't get easier...i just want to know it will be worth it. Oh God please comfort my aching heart. Please guide me...direct my steps, my heart, my thoughts...my life. Help me separate from the pain and help me live....you know my desires and my dreams...you know the complexities of my heart. Please be close...closer than you ever have before. I need you. Desperately need you to be all i need. I need you to be my everything because im tired of needing anyone else. I just want to need you and know you and be captivated and held by you. Please Lord, ease the pain. Bring sweet sleep and surprise blessings tomorrow. Show me your love in new ways....be known. Please. Here is my heart...my soul...my life. I give it back to you.

Partial Surrender

My mind works in extremes. All or nothing. Healthy or sick. Perfect or a mess. I have trouble grasping the more often then not reality...which is the day in day out beautiful imperfection. The struggle over the last few weeks has increased. I cling to exercise as if it can in and of itself sort out the insanity of my heart and mind. I have found myself apathetic and unsure of what it is I want or need or believe or understand. I reached this point, this place, of not being able to figure it out. Any of it. There are so many dreams and desires and things I hope for and long for and they all seem so out of my reach. I reached this point where simply and calmly I explained to God, in the stillness of my car, that He has to figure it out...because I can't. And it felt good. It wasn't all godly and heroic as if to humble myself and confidently remind God to be, well, God. It was a small prayer...a desperate whisper...a sad realization that I have no ability to make my desires come to pass in a way that would actually bring me joy. And if i was going to be totally honest, it was a take a relief. I'm tired. So tired of trying to make it all work and make myself look perfect and held together. But I couldn't let my heart rest in this partial surrender. Because that is what it was. It was surrender of my love life. Surrender of my dream to be a mom and a wife. Surrender of my career and occupational dreams. Which is alot. I can't discount that....because those things seem to hold so much of my self worth in them. But tonight as i was listening to the sermon in church I felt that guilty reminder that I haven't surrendered the eating disorder or the exercise at this point. I want to be free. But im terrified. And I am so frustrated with myself. I became so hard on myself because i decided that partial surrender is worthless. That unless its total and all consuming its as good as nothing at all. But my heart was reminded of grace....not grace to continue sinning but grace to take steps towards total surrender. If I wait until all of me lines up and I stand before God with nothing left to hold onto but Him I am afraid it will take me far too long and far too much fixing of myself to get to a place of humility...of freedom. So for tonight I stand...desiring to surrender fully....but only able to surrender as big of a piece that I can let go of....and i believe, I really believe, that as I truly soak in that surrender I will desire and long to surrender more and more unto Him. Because He brings freedom. His control isn't harsh and unloving...its gentle and purposeful. We are able to more easily move to the rhythms of his grace into the destination he had planned all along...its just getting there was a little easier than the long twisted road i would have chosen on my own. I long to hand over my will more and more...but for tonight I offer all I can...and for tonight I believe it is enough.

"Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us." Eph 3:20

life like me

Oh Jesus my heart needs you.
 I am tired of the right words...
those words bury me as I smile and whisper something about hope
But im empty.
Cold.

Revive me.
Remind me that:
I'm Yours
Bought at a price
Daughter of the King
Worthy

Stay close.
I feel so far away.
But you are there
closer than my next breath
Holding me
while I sell my soul

This world is not
my home
my hope
my happiness

I live to bring
you praise
your love
your truth
to a dying world
to hurting heart

to a life like me.

 

Acceptable Addict

I'm an addict.
As much as i run from that truth and cover it in smiles and socially acceptable behavior, deep down I am an addict. Though I know that my actions and struggles don't define my worth or my identity I wrestle with the fact that my drug of choice is admirable or even envied. We live in a society that is overwhelmed with obesity. We live in a world that describes the perfect body and perfect size as a standard that is unattainable. So when I found that pain in the world was too great and control was only a figment of my imagination I found that I could set my mind and my heart on becoming beautiful. I found that drinking in excess and using drugs was socially unacceptable. I found that those who were slaves to alcohol were mean and loud and inappropriate. I couldn't be perfect and be drunk. Drugs were expensive and unpredictable. There was nothing attractive to me about taking something that made me absent from my own body and susceptible to the desires of those i was with. Who doesn't want to be thin and beautiful. Everyone is always trying to lose a little bit of weight and work out to be more toned and in shape. No carbs, only carbs, no sugar, no wheat, no fat, low fat, all fruit, no fruit....it is always just merry-go-round, changing from week to week...only to cycle back around years later.
I found myself sad tonight as I sat in Church... perfectly raising my hands in worship, taking diligent notes, nodding my head at all the right times...and that being genuine. My desire I believe is genuine. My heart full longing to be seeking after God. My deepest desire in life to know Christ and emulate his love to a hurting world. But in the midst of pain...my mom's surgery behind us and everyone else taking a deep breath of relief...i spiral in the fear and confusion. I am so good at being strong until the time comes when everyone else is able to sigh in thankfulness...and all the terror and fear and insanity that I felt finally able to surface...shoved down so deep that it wouldn't even be known at all...until the pressure breaks through and the mess is everywhere to be seen.
So i could drink. I could take prescription or recreational drugs. I could sleep around or cut my wrists...but the world would look down on me. They would see me as lazy or selfish. There would be talk of me being out of control and untrustworthy...wasting money. It would bring embarrassment to my mom and her job as a children's pastor. My destruction would only cause more pain and my family isn't looking for more of that. So I diligently go to the gym. I use the same machine on the same settings for the same amount of time. Every night I pack the same foods for the next day...knowing the things I will eat and knowing the things I will repack every day this week...something to fill up space. But I can't help but feel like I am living a lie. I can't help but feel like an addict when I get so worried about not going to the gym two days in a row that I sneak away during family dinner to get in a short workout.

I just want to be free. There are days when I am jealous of the alcoholic or the drug addict...because they wear their pain for the world to see. They don't care about keeping a pretense...they just hurt and let the world watch them destruct. I secretly sweat out every fear and every devastation. I starve away each loss. I bleed though sweat and it manifests in flashbacks. My whole past secretly lurking under my skin desperate to find its way out...in a loud and angry and uncontrolled way. It screams at night threatening to lash out and consume those around me...and consume any good that is left in me. So I embrace that 4th elliptical from the left and put it on a level 4. At work I park in the 4th parking spot from the right and always have 4 new emails in my inbox. I eat my same foods at the same times and I wonder why the tears won't come. But don't you see that they understand wanting to work out...they are envious I make it a priority. They understand not eating anything unhealthy...and they are jealous that my clothes are a smaller size than their own. Self control. When all I see when I look in the mirror...when I take a deep breath as I leave the gym...as I throw away my plate from dinner...
I'm an addict.

No words

The wave of the last few weeks crashed over me and took away all my words...sometimes life is so deep and so painful that its hard to breath, let alone speak. It's interesting really...how words disappear and only silent prayers manage to constantly be on the tip of my tongue. In the silence, in the stillness...in the noise and chaos of the day in day out existence that we call life, there quietly waiting is the fear, the what ifs...the realization that we have much less control than we would like to believe and yet more than we give ourselves credit for.
Cancer is an awful word. Its a poison that seeps into the lives of those actually battling its ramifications, but also into the hearts of the loved once standing beside them. Helplessly trying to support and love and hold up while inside we too are dying...yet knowing its not about us...and yet hurting with every step along the road.
Its funny because life after cancer is different. Much like life after losing a parent, after abuse, after an eating disorder is different. While you appreciate the health of those you love and treasure each moment you still feel jaded, scarred from the wounds that aren't necessarily always yours to claim...but the scars run deep and run wide. As I waited in the waiting room for 5 hours today I felt oddly numb. I no longer had any control of the situation. All I could do was to trust God above all else, and trust the man who went through years and years of schooling to specialize in removing cancer. Everything else seems somehow less important. I want to put aside the "trauma work". I want to put aside the elusive search for a husband. All I want to do is not be so afraid...and to have my mom healthy. And in the height of the moment all else fades away. And i struggle to believe with everything in myself that those things will stay in the background and i can move on as though nothing at all has broken me. I just don't know how I will ever feel again. When you make the decision that this journey isn't about your fear or pain or brokenness and allow the one who is sick to have the right to what they need taking precedence over everything else...its a decision to be numb...because how else will you survive?
The words still won't come easily. My mind still in fight or flight...not on me or my journey. Only wanting to hold tight to my mom and never let go. After losing one parent you become desperate to do anything to not lose another. I pray that somehow in this lack or words or feelings i can find a way to still love deeply and do what I need to do to be available to be of use to others. I try to be thankful...because I am so very thankful. I am so thankful for God's goodness and faithfulness to stand beside His promises... I am so thankful He hears us and it moves him to action...to compassion...to remind us His love is always far greater than our own love for our loved ones. He gets all the credit...to Him be all glory..forever and ever amen.

cancer

The word cancer is never one that is expected. It hits like a rock and steals your breath as its meaning slowly bleeds into the brain. No words can fix it. No desire can change it. It simply is...and there is only waiting. When my mom told me about the cancer I thought my heart would literally break inside of me. The greatest fear is anything hurting her. I would protect her with everything in me and guard her and there is nothing i can do. I have no control and the only thing i can do it leave it in the hands of the one who created her...but He was also who also let my father die all those years ago. How do you trust? How do you believe He loves her more than I ever could? How do you lay at His feet and plead with everything you have inside of you...because I love her more than I could ever lose myself. I am so afraid and yet it all feels so surreal. So untouchable....

Father God help me to trust you. Lord God heal my mom. I pray Father that you touch her with your mighty hand and remove any cancer...any trace of any cells and leave her healthy and cancer free. Lord God I plead with you to let her healing bring faith to so many...let it be evidence of your power. I thank you Lord that you love her more than I ever could. Please Lord, heal her body and mind. Bring her peace. I pray for her doctor Lord that you would give him precision and wisdom. I pray for steady hands and for him to be gentle and efficient...that he would see her for who she is and not just another number...the amazing woman of God that she is and take the care any of us would take of her. I pray for people everywhere to lift her up to you and to pray for a miracle. Lord heal her. I know you are able to do all things. Make her healthier than she was before...you are good. Help me to trust in you. Forever trust in you...with my heart...with finding a husband. Lord heal my own heart from the past pain...help me to walk into freedom. I need you to be the center of who I am. I need you to be the center of my life. I need your love. I need your hope. I need your strength because I have nothing left. Be my everything. Help me be strong for my mom. Lord God I need her. Please know how much i need her. I love you. Thank you for hearing my heart. I believe your healing has begun, even now. You are faithful.

Why is it so hard?

To the uneducated and uninformed the solution to recovery from an eating disorder is simple. Eating is in the same category as breathing and sleeping...all necessities that happen without much thought or deliberation. It is among the fundamental necessities to stay alive. Much like we can learn deep breathing for relaxation or sleep in late on the weekends for rest there is also a degree of enjoyment in savoring different flavors and dishes. So for one to decide not to eat is difficult to understand. For some there is a jealous idealism..wishing they too were able to resist the natural need for nutrition to obtain the figure they would like to embody. However it only goes that far...an annoyance of those who are stronger and a guilty or at times not so guilty indulgence in deserts and foods they enjoy. So the simple solution to the starving anorexic would simply be to eat. Give in to the natural desires and promptings the body evokes and eat.

So you can imagine the frustration and desperation that torments me every single day as I battle through a mind so blinded and overwhelmed with numbers and rules and hatred towards the very thing i need to survive. But it goes beyond that. My head is so clouded by the accusations of the eating disorder that there is no room to accomplish the dreams and desires that make this life worth living. It would seem like an easy fix...a simple solution...but its anything but that.

  My world stays in order with my ability to manage and control my weight and my food intake. I am able to relate and empathize with those who struggle with obsessive compulsive disorder. The repetition and the counting and the ability to control myself in a world that feels so susceptible to the desires and agenda's of those i come into contact with brings a calming security, an ability to breath...and like a drug that eases the anxiety and pain that surrounded everything i can't control, i am addicted to the safety within the predictability. Before you know it the feeling that is achieved through the disordered eating is harder and harder to achieve and the lengths you must go to increase...and to be honest its worth it.

This week I believed a medication I was taking was making me gain weight. I felt like the one thing i can control was taken from me and i went into this crazy panic...i became desperate to prove i could still find control. I didn't care about the consequences of losing weight...i just needed to see there was still something in this world that made sense...that followed some sort of order...like 1 + 1 = 2. I needed something to follow a this, then that, equals pattern. The world doesn't make sense. Bad things happen without asking permission. People make choices that impact my life...my heart...my voice. So when i perceived my medication to mess up the pattern i have found so much comfort in, I became frantic to make it all work again. So its not as easy as just eating. Eating or the lack there of has been interwoven with sanity, protection, safety...and to give it up would be giving up everything that makes my world safe to live in. It helps me cope with the weight of a past that threatens to steal my very heart... that threatens to strip me of all joy and peace and leave me cold and alone, used and worthless. There is no easy answer as to how to get better...only an understanding of why its so hard to let go.

Fragile

Fragile - Easily broken or damaged or destroyed.

The lie is that we are weak. For whatever reason its easier to align ourselves with the ignorant assumption that addiction consumes those who are lazy, selfish, and unmotivated than it is to see that fighting takes courage. Perhaps its the shame. Perhaps its my own pride. Regardless I find myself embodying a false persona in a desperate attempt to be something other than the person I am. I stop writing. I stop connecting with the friends around me. I run deep into the dungeon of my heart and try to bury the monster that threatens to steal more and more from me everyday. And when I can't smile and laugh through the environmental and emotional cues I lecture myself, assuming a lack of grace and compassion will train me to become the person those around me could love.

You see the shame is so deeply rooted. I have this picture of them woman I am supposed to be and I am constantly comparing myself to her...picking apart every single difference and wondering how to deny what is and find the way to become like her. The biggest problem however is that she isn't real. She never was. She is just an innocent picture in my head...a picture drawn by a child without the real life experience to comprehend that our dreams don't always come true. I was supposed to go college, meet the man of my dreams and get married. I would then naturally get my dream job and work until the day we decided to have children. Then I would be a stay at home mom, be a mentor and motivational speak on the side, and live happily ever after. But it didn't work out that way. It didn't even come close. So I state at this dream, this picturesque life and wonder where I went wrong...and wonder if there is ever a chance for redemption.

The thing that I miss on a daily basis is that my experiences and my struggles don't make me "less than" everyone else around me. They don't make me "less than" this woman I dreamed of being. In fact, though I would never admit it, I think it might just be the opposite. I know woman, amazing women, who have been to hell and back. They battle demons that no one on this earth should ever have to fight. Each and everyday they face nightmares that would make the most cold and composed cringe...rightfully so. Some of them have struggled with drugs and alcohol. Some of them starve to numb out the pain. Some of them cut themselves and have sold their bodies for money. But hear me when I say they are stronger and more beautiful than countless others who are living out the idealized perfection we all strive to become. I am not glorifying addiction. I think addiction in an of itself is easy. For those with deep wounds and broken hearts it isn't a pass time or an adventure. It isn't enjoyable. But its comfortable. And lets just be honest. For a time, it works. Or else why would we do it? But the strength I am talking about is the courage that comes with the fight. I have encountered a lot of people in my treatment experiences. There are a couple different types of people. There are those who fight, relapse, and because its hard or its uncomfortable or its exhausting (which it is all of those things), they lay down and die. They decide life has given them more than they can handle and the rest of the world is to blame...so they keep using, keep starving, keep drowning away the hurt in their drug of choice...until death itself consumes them. But then there are those who fight like hell, relapse, and then stand back up and keep fighting. You look into their eyes and you can see how deep the pain runs. They won't make eye contact. They smile and laugh and go out of their way to do anything they can to help you. They would give you the shirt off their back if you asked for it...only because they have been used and abused until their voice is but a whisper...a whisper that is blatantly ignored when audible.

I was watching Greys anatomy this week and there was as scene that inspired most of this rant. Watch and you will hopefully see where I am going with this...




I get so passionate because it is so easy to look at my life and look in the mirror and see my struggle and to see failure. And I do see failure. Everyday I think about how far I am from the dream I had for myself and all I want is to find a magic reset button. But the longer I search for that magic button the longer it will take me to look at my God, my Jesus, and to ask Him to help me become the woman He created me to be. He clearly didn't create me to live out the plan I envisioned...clearly we have a different vantage point of what perfection in my life looks like. If success was measured by courage then I would know some of the most successful people to grace this earth. Strength isn't measured by the car we drive or the fairytale we live in. Strength comes everyday as we surrender our broken hearts and lives into the care of the almighty God. It comes as we take a baby step towards learning to trust again. Because to have survived hell. To go back to visit it every night in your dreams. To smell it on the Cologne of a man who bumps into you as he hurries by. To day in and day out have triggers of a past that won't let you be and to keep living...to keep fighting...that is courage.

What appears to be fragile may often be deceiving. Recovery is delicate...but the survivor is far, far from fragile.

Protection

I struggle with the concept of being protected. I find it difficult to give anyone that much power, to entrust myself into the care of another. And in our society being vulnerable and dependant isn't exactly looked highly upon. I guess to be loved enough by another that they would stand guard, at their own potential danger, to ensure your safety is beautiful... well in theory. As long as we have the general concept that we are all fallible...that really no matter how intentional someone is or how desperate they are to keep you safe, there is no guarantee, no real chance that awful things won't happen. But how often do we have high expectations, especially as children, only to fall hard and fall fast into the reality that there is no one big enough or strong enough to really protect you from the harsh pain of this life. To be perfectly honest I have struggled at times with the concept that the Lord is our protector. He is God. He is all powerful, all knowing, all loving. And yet sin entered the world and humanity fell. Our freewill allowed us the ability to not only hurt ourselves but also to impose our own will onto another person. We aren't puppets...because what good would love be if it was forced? So I understand all of that- and yet- what good does it do me to have a protector who isn't able to protect me from the freewill of others? As a child I came to many conclusions about this based on my limited ability to conceptualize life outside of myself. Pain and fear and a lack of understanding all jumbled inside of my little head and the only conclusion i could come to was that that I was the cause of everything and I could never ever trust anyone again. If what had happened to me was an example of protection, then protection from anyone was useless to me...it still left me shattered, and alone.


The discussion of protection has been brought up quite often in the last year. I had countless conversations with Tiffany where she explained to me that God's greatest protection for me was in my ability to not remember that which I felt like I wasn't protected from.. There was actually no recollection of memory, that was so dark and so deep it would destroy me. For years He allowed me to forget, until the time came when I could handle it. Which is fantastic, if that memory loss could have lasted forever. But as a 28 year old woman I now feel trapped inside the limited memories of a young child. Over and over and over again they play...each smell, each sound, each whisper echoing as real now as it was all those years ago. It would seem that forgetting still wasn't exactly my idea of protection....because what good is it to forget, if one day its all returns.

The other night I watching the TV show called the Mentalist. It is a crime solving show with a bit of a twist to it. Patrick Jane joined the CBI as a consultant after his daughter and wife were killed by a serial killer named "Red John." His life became dedicated to finding their killer and he found he could more easily find this man while working on the "inside" (police, FBI, CBI etc) instead of on his own. His only motivation however, is to find and kill red john with his own hands. Jane has an amazing ability to read people and emotionally draw things out of a situation that most people would miss. He is brilliant and is an amazing asset to the CBI. Well, in the last episode, while trying to investigate a murder scene Jane is attacked from the back and drowned in a swamp...they of course manage to find and revive him but he has memory loss. Now I know this is just a TV show but stick with me. The doctors say the memory loss is attributed to the fact that often times when the brain had endured great emotional trauma, in self protection it can retreat to only having memories before the traumatic event in the case of physical trauma. So Jane wakes up and doesn't remember anything about his live after meeting his wife...he can't remember her at all. And the doctors say to let the memories come back on their own in attempt not to re traumatize him. To make a long story short, it turns out Jane is a total jerk before meeting his wife. He decides to quite his job steal a bunch of money and move on. He knows there is some great emotional trauma everyone is tip toeing around and he says something to his coworker which hit me...He asked her to just leave him alone, because he is finally happy...something he never was after his wife and daughter were brutally murdered. There was finally an ability to go back to the time "before". Those are my words...to go back to "before". That moment in life when the veil that was up allowed you to see the world as innocent...to have no comprehension of the deep harsh reality of the pain in this world. The evil. In the end, his coworker decides to save him from being the horrible person he was and has now returned to being and leads him to a place where he will remember what happened. So she takes him to his own home and leads him up the stairs to a door that clearly stays closed...and she tells him to go in. Inside is what appears to be the room that his wife and children were raped and murdered in, with the blood thrown against the wall in the shape of a smiley face, the signature of the serial killer.

It is a TV show. I know. But Jane's face...it was the look I know and feel so often...one i have seen in the eyes of others who have faced similar battles. The feeling of recognition, two realities meeting for the first time or for the millionth time...and its as if the world has been pulled out from under your feet. You feel sick and your head is spinning...if only for the amount of time you can stay grounded, and stay in the present. You desperately want to go back to the blank feeling that tells you there is something more but never gives voice to more than a hunch. You want to run and sometimes you try...pleading with your mind to forget. To fall asleep one day and wake up and it be gone. For days, weeks, years, you hold onto the hope that it will. Because how could something that never was come into the here and the now and present itself like it always has been...and somehow you are the only one confused by it. You want the whole world around you to tell you its not true. You want someone to tell you that you are crazy...because anything, ANYTHING, would be better than the truth. The hair raising screams begin- the ones only you can hear... a horror story on repeat in the back of your mind. Nightmares bringing the subconscious to life.... reliving a pain so deep that it was shut off from your mind. Yet every night it comes to life. There is no escape. So you hide and deny and numb in desperate attempt to be free...while only burying yourself faster each day. There aren't words to express it. Literally...because you can't imagine speaking after the vow of silence. You hate that little girl who lives in your mind because if she would just stop crying, stop breathing, stop laying motionless staring at the ceiling then maybe you could move on. They tell you to love her and in disgust you look away...she is the reason for the inability to be happy. She is the reason for the sickness and the loneliness. "Love her?" I mock. I simply wish she would disappear and give me the chance to start living. And so I desperately try to separate myself from her. But it seems moving home has made that harder to do. Around every corner there is a reminder, a memory, a person... hyper vigilance has sewn itself onto my body like a shadow. Anxiety flows through my veins and trembles out through my hands and takes rhythm in my bouncing leg. But the choice to let the past overcome me is no choice at all. There is a life to uphold. A job to work. Friendships to keep...and new ones to be made. And I walk the balance beam, high above the tree tops, believing if I fall it will all be over. So I hold tight to myself, thinking that will be the only thing that won't hurt me. All the while God sent hands reach out on all sides of me, offering help, hope, and support...and I am so desperate to take them it scares me to death. What if I forget how to function without help? What if I lose my ability to need no one? What if I become so desperate to not be alone that I scare everyone away because I cling to them? For so long I have taught myself to never give in to what my heart longs for...the more desperate I am for it the greater the importance to prove my self control in my ability to want it and not give into it. But there are days that the thirst becomes to too great and in shame I take a deep breath in the comfort of someone holding my hand. Oh to be able to admit to weakness, to surrender to love, and to chance everything...and risk the seemingly unbearable pain of learning to be loved and letting some into the deepest places of hurt and then one day chance being alone in it once more.

I know God is faithful. I know his truth and understanding far over shadow my own... I see his faithfulness in the people he has placed in my life...in the fact that he continues to fight on my behalf. I believe this time of year is a reminder of his faithfulness...that he would love us so deeply that he would send his son to be born into this harsh world, then to die a horrific death just so that we could be with him forever. So on the days when the journey seems so long, i make myself remember, He is faithful.




You Are Faithful" - by Michael Boggs

Oh the mountains haven't always moved
When I prayed that they would
And the waters didn't always part
When I believed that they should

But You have promised You'd never leave us
To face this life on our own
So whatever You choose
However You move
I know I'm not alone

In the healing and in the breaking
You are faithful,
You are faithful
In the saving and in the suffering
You are faithful
You are faithful

Through the pieces of a broken life
Your loved has helped me see
I may never understand Your ways
But You'll always be good to me

'Cause You have promised You'd never leave us
To face this life on our own
So whatever You choose
However You move
I know I'm not alone

In the healing and in the breaking
You are faithful
You are faithful
In the saving and in the suffering
You are faithful
You are faithful

Your love is deep enough to drown my fears Lord
The plans You have for me are worth waiting for

watching the world pass me by

I don't have a feeling to describe the way I feel. Instead I have a picture, a situation per say... and that picture embodies my voice, attempts to communicate in my lack of words. Its a scene in a movie I have seen many times. A person in some shape or fashion takes a physical step backwards... within a busy street with people walking every which way to get to work or school or families at home. Everyone is in a hurry and talking on their phones or texting and trying to catch a taxi. But the character steps back and though they are standing still the world around them goes into some sort of fast forward...as if life just keeps moving and changing and somehow, mentally- which is being portrayed physically- they are separated from reality and time, and deep within themselves they are standing still. Body frozen in place, eyes staring blankly into the distance...in a way which would lead you to believe you could look straight into her soul, that is if anyone noticed she was there at all.

That's how I feel. Separated by my own lack of movement yet not able to fully withdraw from the reality which are the demands and expectations of an everyday life. Avoiding eye contact, avoiding heart contact...hoping to somehow come back to life in time to catch up with the world around me. Sand falling to indicate my number of breaths is running out. Lost inside a tunnel where a small dot of light is visible...yet seemingly too far away to get to before its too late. My mind completely still and simultaneously racing to the rhythm of my pounding heart. Screaming with no noise. Crying with no tears. Silence so loud it can drive you insane.

There is a song out right now by Rascal Flats called Easy. The exact content of the song doesn't parallel my situation, in terms of it all being about a broken relationship, but the concept fits perfectly. We, or I guess I should say "I" go through life trying to make living seem effortless. I try as hard as I can to be the version of myself I so desperately want to be. I work hard. I portray confidence and lightness. I say the right things at the right times and I laugh off pain as though it is nothing but a slight discomfort in my otherwise blessed life. The line of the song that I so relate to is this,

"But what she, what she don't know.
Is how hard it is to make it look so, Easy."

I so relate to that. I work so hard to make it look like living life is easy. That to love deeply is easy. That working hard and laughing light and taking risks is so easy...when in all reality I am stuck inside a heart that blocks out the world around me. I am the girl stepping back as the rest of the world passes by...staring blankly through the deep sadness, the heavy heart, the fear and the hopeless ambivalence.

All I really want is to be loved deeply...to be known fully, and to be worth fighting for. And the crazy thing is that deep love, undeserved worth, that hope is standing right in front of me. Its so real and so beautiful and yet feels so hard to embrace...to trust...to get used to. Christ thought I was worth fighting for. He loved me enough to see me in the depth of my sin and fight to bring me back to him...he loved me too much to let me go...to reap the consequence of my mistakes. Everyday He offers me that gift of grace. Moment by moment he offers his hand to walk me through...and more often than not I turn away in shame...because to be loved, to be known, is too painful. Which kinda bring me to the second rascal flatts song called I won't let go. I believe the chorus of that song is the Lord's heart for us...his deep desire for us to know that we are never alone.

I wish it was just that easy. To open yourself to love. To be known and be embraced for it. To accept the past in order to make it stop torturing the present. To let tears fall without shame. To put words to the unspeakable. To stop the cycle. To be whole. To be free.

I believe there is hope that is worth fighting for. Even when I can't feel it...even when I can't see it. Even when I am frozen in time, watching the world pass me by...I hold tight to the promise that with Christ nothing is impossible.

Better than a Hallelujah

Now matter where I am in my life it seems as though there is some other place I would like to be. When I was in Nashville I always thought moving home would fix the perpetual loneliness...because surly when you are living with your family there is never a moment to be alone...causing one to conclude there will be a lack of loneliness. It's easy to forget that loneliness is a place deep inside the core of who you are and isn't fixed with the presence of other people. Now that I am here in California I long for the days when I was in Nashville, thinking at least there I had friendships and relationships with people I loved and trusted. So I sit here perplexed because I can't seem to grasp the skill of being content. It is as though if I were to stop long enough to take in the moment, my lack of movement would cause the very beauty of the season to crumble beneath my feet.

Last night I was painting at a pottery place finishing up a dog bowl I was making for Bella. I had started it weeks before and hadn't quite finished the detailing I was doing on the sides and some of the stenciling needed a second coat. So I sat as still as I possibly could focusing all my attention into the precision of tracing back over the fancy letters that marked the bowl with her name. My hands were shaking and it took so much concentration to dip the tip of the brush into a tiny amount of paint and gently darken the paint already in place. I thought about the patience that was being required of me. I thought about how slow I had to go in order to get the result I wanted. And as I sat and listened to Amy Grant's "Better than a Hallelujah" my eyes welled up with tears. I am so careless with my life. I take things that are so fragile and delicate...my heart, my recovery, my trust and I refuse to slow down and with shaky hands brush by brush build upon the way I want my life to turn out. Instead I choose any brush and throw some paint onto a tray and hope the colors and textures match up...and then am honestly so surprised when the result is far from beautiful...far from how I envisioned it to be. I treat myself as though I am a useless piece of art with no hope of ever becoming something worthy to be seen. I throw away the tears and the sweat and the intense pain I have already placed into making my life free from the grasp of my past...I take the value that others have marked me with and have beat myself down to something no one would want...because at least then I won't be hurt by the worth at which I am appraised.

Its been a hard week. At times I refuse to write in order to preserve the image people have of me. I want people to think I am doing great and fantastic. That I have my shit together and that I am somehow different than the girl they remembered me to be. I fear forever being the hopeless cause...the girl who never got better because she was too stubborn to take responsibility for her life. And the funny thing is that my version of taking responsibility is taking responsibility for everything and everyone...or refusing the existence of things that would give someone else the responsibility over me. Have you ever had the pleasure of having a debt collector call you repeatedly? They leave intimidating messages or have people call with beautiful accents and threaten to take everything you own if you don't do what they say you must. Well instead of facing these people. Telling them what I can do to work toward the goal we both have, I refuse to answer my phone. I put my phone on silent and I feel sick every time I see their missed calls. I refuse to listen to their messages and hope that if i ignore them long enough they will give up on me and leave me alone. The problem is that it normally just doesn't work that way. It is a battle of wills and they are being paid to settle this so in all reality they have alot more motivation than I do to keep calling until they get what they want. This is exactly how I live my life when it comes to the painful things that keep my sick. This week I have felt the weight of some of my fears. Perceived abandonment or major change. Feeling so alone... people who once held you close are now holding you at arms length. After days of pulling away, trying to show them that I am not that hard to love, I open up my heart in total fear and vulnerability only to find that arms length is now the stance of our relationship and that my fears have been seemingly confirmed. Terrified. I spend so much of my life running from this very feeling all because of how deeply it tore my life apart. I see the anger that comes up inside of me which immediately turns to fear and regret and I start asking for forgiveness when there is nothing to be forgiven for. I have learned to operate out of always assuming I am doing something wrong and taking responsibility for things I can't control. And part of me thinks its this very attitude that keeps me alone and constantly fighting an uphill fight...every time I fall I roll back to the bottom and start from the beginning all over again. And I start to ask myself what it is that makes someone so afraid...like when a dog cowers at any raised voice or raised hand. You wonder what they have walked through that has taught them there is a need for their reaction.

So as I struggle to find a place to rest my head from the insanity that has become my life I pour out my heart before the Lord praying that, as it says in Amy Grants song, a broken heart and deep longing for His touch would be "better than a hallelujah."


*** Lord God I pray for my heart to be open to love, to be open to change, and be open to following you with total abandon. I pray that you would help me turn this path, this heart, and this life around as a testimony of your power and to bring glory to you alone. I pray Lord that instead of running from the people you have placed in my life to help me walk through this pain that you would give me the courage to push past the fear and walk with courage...and allow my heart to be healed through the love and relationship that is being given. Help me know that my hope is in you alone.***