The Rebuild

It's hard to know where to start. The past 12 years I've felt like I've been metaphorically flayed alive over and over again. Collectively we're so visual as a society. If you were physically flayed or burnt alive the wounds and scars would be there for everyone to see. You can imagine just how hard it would be to feel soft touch through so much scar tissue. But when this damage is done to the soul in purely a non physical way how do we communicate that let alone address it.

The thing is that's how I felt for so long. That my soul was scorched over and over again I began to cary those coals permanently in my psyche. I couldn't cry and the only emotion I could feel was anger. Anger somebody took what should have been my formative years and locked them away so I'd never have ambition or dreams again. It was indeed cruel. However if I just kept going the way I was holding it all inside to try to protect my pride, would anyone even know I was suffering? 

The truth was no one knew what I went through because the punishment was even worse if I told anyone. There's also the hard thing about telling someone you've suffered such an emotional battle that even they don't know how to respond to a tale that's so distressing. This is the exact thing abuse survivors experience. There's one simple word to describe the feeling that keeps them trapped in this cycle. That word is shame.

I don't want to go into great detail about what I suffered because I don't want that to be the pinnacle point of determining who I am as a human being. I am not the abuse I've suffered, but rather the strong person I've become inspire of the abuse. If I could give one visual that summed up the situation I've been trapped in for 12 years it would be what happened what happened when I unboxed the computer I did all my writing and photography work on. I hadn't opened it for about a year since I left the house I shared with my abuser. When I opened it he'd placed a password on it under his name.

I guess you might wonder why on earth that held such importance. Well when I was in hospital he screamed at me on the phone "You'll be on a disability pension for the rest of your life and never see your children. He honestly thought he had destroyed me and was able to erase any memory of me being an actual human being. 

He took over my computer with such tyranny that he never expected me to rise from the burning pit he'd pushed me into. He honestly never counted on me rising again from those ashes. The one thing I did that angered him so much was surviving stronger and more alive. No longer content with being unable to feel the soft touch of love by the people who actually know me and love me for the kind and gentle person I am. The person he tried to flip the switch on saying that I had done to him all of the abusive things he made me endure.

That is as much as I'm willing to talk about him from now on. I don't want to be the sum of all his cruel judgements. I want to be a person who's no longer numb but embracing the vulnerability that allows me the very human luxury of feeling the soft touch of love again. He can no longer hurt me from where I'm standing, elevated into the light of a new life. From here on in I am not dictated by the anger he showered me with. I am a survivor not a victim. The true gift now upon me is the ability to cast away shame and speak only words of light.