I’ve always tried to start at the beginning. And then I
never get very far. And it ends up shoved in the back of a filing cabinet
somewhere. Or crumpled into the trash can. Pain stops me. Protection for others
stops me. Not having all the answers stops me. Not being able to tell the whole
story stops me. Always something stops me. It’s my story, but I feel like it
isn’t my story to tell. Sometimes that feels like insult added to injury, right
there.
So on what may be failed attempt 16,849, I’m just going to
start in the middle, or the end, or midway through the mid to the end. I’m just
going to start right where I am, right now. But part of that is telling a
little bit of how I got to where I am – but not the whole enchilada.
I had a bad episode about a year ago. I could say it was
exactly a year ago – only because it lasted for at least three months, and I’m
within that three month span. Chronologically speaking. In my desperate attempt
to get out of it, I contacted a gal who was quite a bit younger than me, who
had walked through a similar situation, but seemed a whole lot more adept at
handling the situation than I was. And I mean a whole lot – she would just
throw it out there, off the cuff, to pretty much strangers without even
flinching her face in a hold back a single tear grimace. Which is how I knew we
had a similar history. We had coffee. I asked her how she came to such a peace
with her story, and she told me she read this book called A Wounded Heart. I
thought about it for a couple of weeks, and then I ordered it on Amazon. I
remember looking at it like hot coals when it arrived. I didn’t open it right
away.
At first reading it was amazingly eye-opening. I could not
put it down. I saw my story splashed all
over the pages. Not every page, not every paragraph, but thoughts and events
and ideas that I had never seen written on paper. At least not paper that I
didn’t bury in a filing cabinet or crumple and throw in the trash. I read it
slowly. It was exceedingly thought provoking and even painful, but the
validation was worth the effort. I read about a chapter a month maybe. Maybe
sometimes two chapters. Maybe sometimes a chapter in six weeks.
In April I went on a women’s retreat with my church and I
read a chapter near the middle of the book that sent me into a tail spin. I
don’t want to talk about the tailspin right now. It’s 8 months later, and in
this past week I finally read the next chapter after the tailspin chapter. After
rereading the tailspin chapter last week. I may have reread it twice since
April. I’m like a moth to a flame. A very slow moth to the flame.
Hopefully that’s just enough information to bring you at
least somewhat with me into my present. If not, tough boogers. That’s all
you’re going to get right now.
To me what this new chapter was about was contempt, but
that’s not what it was about per se. If you know me, the suitably-dressed-to-go-outside-and-play-with-others
me, you would never guess that I am overflowing with self-contempt. What I
present is a woman who is self-confident and has her shit together. I almost
always have a huge smile on my face. And that isn’t fake! I don’t want to say
I’m presenting a false me or anything, I generally do live in an aura of joy,
and even when the waters are murky, I find humor somewhere, under some rock.
But when you peel back the onion and you get down to the core, behind closed
doors, alone and in the darkness, there’s a deep, perhaps bottomless, pool of
self-contempt. I’m not saying this so that anyone can fix it for me. Or assuage
me. Or God forbid feel sorry for me (that’s horrific to me). I’m just stating a
fact: it’s there. And it’s something I wrestle with, some days more than
others. It’s something I’m trying to call by name.
I even have my own Psalm David wrote me, just for that. But
I digress.
Anyway, this chapter started out by saying that….. You know
what? I have a hard time even saying “victims of abuse” because I feel like I’m
pulling a sympathy card that may or may not be true and slamming it out on the
table so that everyone feels sorry for me. I feel like that describes someone
else, not me. And by even insinuating that it might be me, I’m a drama queen.
Which is also something I try to work through. My logic proves (or at least
Ellen’s logic proves) I am not a drama queen. But I still have this harness
that holds me back. Let’s try this paragraph again….
Anyway, this chapter started out by saying that Victims of
Abuse behave in relationship one of three general ways (or really some mix of
all three). The first is the Good Girl who is full of self-contempt. I instantly
identified with being full of self-contempt, but not with being the Good Girl.
I used to be. I am again. But in between where I used to be and where I am is a
Whole Other World. And playing The Good Girl card kind of makes me snort
laughter out of my nostrils to the point my nose hairs burn. Literally.
Yet the other two options get into contempt of others, and I
knew straight off that didn’t apply to me. I almost didn’t even read it at all
because it went on and on for paragraphs and pages and I knew it didn’t apply.
I love people – I love everyone. I even love people who are mean to me. I am
far more forgiving and accepting of others, with all their flaws and
inconsistencies, than I ever am for myself. I am kind and loving, I collect
people in my life, for goodness sake! I forgive people, I extend grace, I help
people…. I ran through my head listing off hundreds of people, and I came back
with a 0% register of contempt directed at anyone on the planet. Not even my brother,
for crying out loud.
But I read it anyway, in case it would put me asleep.
Because it was certainly bedtime by this point. And then something started
happening - images started creeping into my brain. The boyfriend I broke up
with and every time I looked at him I wanted to choke him and I couldn’t hardly
even bear to look at him at all anymore and so I made fun of him to my friends
about how is head bobbed and his teeth bucked whenever he told a story, like a
bobble head you mount on your dashboard. The boyfriend I broke up with but he
was my roommate and every morning I had to sit there and watch him
self-righteously cross-legged in his Capri pajama pants eating his breakfast
cereal and I wanted to pick up his cereal bowl and smash it and break it in his
smug face. I couldn’t even look at him eat and had to leave the house. I told
one of my other roommates how I felt, and of what I remember his reaction was,
“Wow, Ami. {giggling an uncomfortable, rather horrified giggle, incredulous at
my level of vindication}. He’s just eating cereal. A boy’s gotta eat.” The
boyfriend I couldn’t even meet or text or talk to on the phone or email or look
in the eye…… Well, there was a big panic attack around that one….. So maybe it
isn’t 100% across the board. Maybe it’s not a one size fits all sort of thing.
But it’s there.
Now I don’t sound like such a nice, friendly, outgoing, kind
Christian girl, do I? I sound…. Hateful.
So anyway, to avoid my self-contempt road, I don’t know
where it comes from, but I do have contempt for others. Not just any Joe or
Josie walking down the street, not strangers or politicians, but for certain
men in my life, it’s there. And I see that that can’t be super beneficial if a
girl ever really wanted to have a relationship. I don’t know how you solve
that, but I’ve identified it, anyway.
I wonder if I did that with my
husbands? I don’t know the answer to that one yet. So I’m going to
stop here.
Without a proper conclusion or answer or reflection or even Bible verse.
{TIME LAPSE INVOLVING SWEET SLEEP}
After I wrote this I sent my rough draft to a dear friend of mine, and then went to read my daily Bible reading. I didn’t really want to, but I was already two days behind, and with the Christmas holiday looming, I know it’s only going to get more difficult to stay caught up.
After I wrote this I sent my rough draft to a dear friend of mine, and then went to read my daily Bible reading. I didn’t really want to, but I was already two days behind, and with the Christmas holiday looming, I know it’s only going to get more difficult to stay caught up.
Can you imagine what popped up in my daily reading? My
Psalm. Psalm 139. I smiled a big old smile and sat back in the couch and just
felt so personally cared for by the God of the Entire Universe and All Time and
Space. Earlier today my friend asked me, after I commented that I used to think
doing something I don’t do anymore was just part of who I was, “And now what do
you think about who you are?” And I replied, making a joke (kind of) with song
lyrics, “I’m the child of the One True King.” I didn’t know how to answer the
question. But you know what? I *am* the child of the One True King. And who can
do any better than that?
He wrote the conclusion to this for me.
