I would like for these words to be chiselled onto the tombstone of my mother/abuser once she passes away. Or these words recorded in her legal file. Or both. Just in case. Just for Justice.

 

To this abuser/mother/human being

She inflicted emotional, physical, and sexual violence upon her four children.

Her behaviour was abusive, sadistic, psychopathic, frozen, controlling, manipulating, dictating, despising, infringing, invading, intruding, introjecting, at the same rejecting and neglecting, unrelenting, deceiving, violating, and coercive- all in the name of motherly love.

She terrorised, isolated, tortured, forced, starved, oppressed, punished, ignored,abandoned, used, exploited, objectified, denied and demonized her children.

Her worst crime being the committing of soul-murder to a child.

Her second-worst crime being the abuse of herself.

She was a victim that never got the chance to be a survivor, thus becoming an offender.

She was a human being that never had a chance to be a human being.

May her soul find her heart and the peace she was unable to find within her lifetime.

PS. In case she does not find peace, please have her convicted, so she will not be able to return to earth in a human form. Thanks.

*************************************************************************

 Ok, so the PS. might be wishful thinking given the amount of abusers on this earth, but I think my tombstone-idea is quite catchy. (beware of sarcasm here) For me it would be a validation of how violent our society really is and how abusive its individuals. And als about late justice for my brothers and me.

 Imagine what all the cemeteries would look like! There would be a true reflection of the violence and abuse we have had to endure as being part of this world. I wonder if it would change how we remember the deceased.

I reckon 20- 30% of the tombstones would give testimony to abuse, 60% would be dysfunctional and 10- 20% were to be healthy individuals.

The 20 -30% is a relatively low number for abuse but I am talking about the abusers here, many of which are serial offenders so the actual number of victims would be higher. (Disclaimer: estimates are based solely on my personal estimation without any actual numbers.

This pretty much sums it up and soothes my need for justice a bit which is in fact a desire for reality to be seen as what it is.

 

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Growing up in abuse I never had someone to model healthy bonding to me.

In fact it is only since last year (ironically around Christmas) that I realised: relationships are about bonding. Human being to Human being. This has been a HUGE ephiphany for me, one that has since changed my life in very profound ways.

To this day I do not know what came more of a shock to me back then: the insight that life is about relationships  or the fact that I had never been aware of what I was missing out on. I was not able to even fathom what “relating” was about.

The idea of “sharing one`s life with someone” contains five concepts which had been super-alien to me. The five concepts being 1. sharing (???) 2. one’s (mine???) 3.life (WTH?) 4. with ( a preposition??) 5. someone (see number 2)

In my early twenties I thought it was all about having a boyfriend with whom to have  sex  with ( and sex only) and maybe upgrade it to have stuff to tell each other such as “today I did such and such and on the week-end I spent my time doing this and that.” I assumed that as a serious couple you`d have to do lots of things or else it is going to get boring because you run out of things to talk about.  Life needed to be a series of interesting events so we would have something to say to each other. And sex would be what glued us together. Today I call this ‘placebo-relating.’ You merely entertain each other without ever truly bonding. And then you need to move on as soon as the novelty factor wears off. Add a narcissistic personality disorder and you have a solid foundation for a sex-and love addiction.

I started out with a sex-and love anorexia due to all the shame I carried with me.

After clearing most of the shame and an eating disorder out of the way, I ventured out into the dating scene. Being a student at that time, I spent most of my time socialising and opportunities presented themselves everywhere. While it was fun in the beginning, it started to feel a bit compelling… with me dating guy after guy, getting crushes on any random male individual that would cross my path and just becoming obsessed with finding a suitable romantic partnership.

One day I realised it felt like my eating disorder, with the addictive “substance”  now being attention and shallow affection instead of food/diets. I would get high on dating and/or romantic interests with the inevitable crash afterwards. It got to the point that life to me became not worth living if I did not have a date to go to, some guy pursuing me, or not having the constant prospective of sex.

I had fallen head over heels into a sex-and love addiction.

 

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 I am super hyper. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Too hyper too be writing.

My attention is all over the place, cannot focus on writing cohesive whatevers.

The joy of having borderline disorder. Or a mixed personality disorder. Or maybe a bi-polar disorder. Definitely something dis-.

I feel like shouting and screaming and kicking. All at once. At the same time like dancing and exploding. Just getting rid of all this energy before it is killing me.

Its so too much but can’t calm down. My thoughts are racing. And I am too fast too feel anything.

Its super frustrating- massive pressure.

Pressure.pressure.pressure.

Its good to know that there is life after the pressure.

I get so tense with all this energy having nowhere to go. It is cramping up my chest. Not so much constricting as in panic attacks but more like pushing against my ribs. I think its not so much a matter of energy, but a matter of pressure.

Right now it is keeping me from having a glass of water because I am afraid I will break the glas.

It is also keeping me from having lunch within the next hour because I just cant concentrate on getting something to eat, not to mention eating itself.

Need to give myself a time-out. One hour of being present to pressure. Will eat later. Hope Im calming down before Im getting too hungry. Because feeling hungry wont help in easing the pressure.

 Still hyper. Cannot breathe fast enough for me needing air.

It feels like an avalanche. An avalanche of pure pressure. And it wont stop until it has reached its zero level . Racing itself out.

Im glad though it is not snow. Only Pressure. Frozen Energy.

 

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Taking care of myself with regards to my exhaustion definitely helped me to break through the lethargy. Instead of chastising myself ( as I would have in the past and still do nowadays) I decided to be gentle with myself. Being gentle stopped me in my tracks, I turned around and consoled the little girl in me who had been left behind and who had never been able to live the life as it had been given to her. Bright and shiny, only to be shattered into pieces. And it was the adult side in me that enabled the grieving process of having had that life being taken away.

It also made me more aware of my body. Besides needing a change of perspective, I also felt that there was something wrong physically.

I had hypothyrodism last year and the physical symptoms had been similar to those I had been experiencing for the past weeks. Physical exhaustion, sensitivity to cold, hair loss lasting for weeks, etc…So I went to my GP and had my blood tested. Sure enough my thyroid levels were low so I am now on medication for the next months.

Having adressed the emotional, spiritual, and physical aspects of the problem, I had the space to realize that I had been asking too much of myself. Again. Story of my life.

Instead of appreciating how far I had come,and how much I had grown, I tried to push myself even further, trying to do more in an even faster way without acknowledging where I really was. Without giving myself a break. Ever.

When it comes to my recovery I have been a bit of a workaholic from the day I started out.

I spent my days and nights researching, reading, writing, processing it all while trying to live a somewhat „normal“ life, ie studying, socialising and spending time with friends, etc.

It worked for a while but it all came crashing down last year. And I have been „off“ since.

While my focus shifted from outside to inside, obviously the workaholic attitude stayed with me…

I approached healing as I would approach a sprint, not the marathon it is.

No wonder I got burnouted on the way!

It has been a year and a half since I dedicated my life to healing and learning full-time and I need to remind myself that I am in for the long run. And that I can take the time to acknowledge how far I have come and celebrate the miracle that I am here, in exactly the place I am supposed to be.

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Sorry, but I wont post today. I just lost my edited draft, which I spent 30min revising on. Thankfully I have a saved copy of the draft but I will have to revise it again before I can publish it. Ah, the joys of being a newbie….

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Continuing from yesterday’s entry:

 Part 2

With the realisation of having no life of my own, also came the insight that I NEVER had a life of my own.

That I had never taken full ownership for my life because I never knew that I could!! Ownership of my life simply had never been an option for me.

And I wasnt even aware that I didnt have a life of my own because I had been too busy with trying to NOT feel exhausted/desperate/stuck, which is also called placebo-activity. Or waiting.

All the while I had been trying so hard to pretend that I had my own life! Mostly for myself but also for others. Me trying to convince myself I had my own life was the very thing that had kept me from owning it!!

And it explains why I had been feeling so adverse when it came to sharing. To share not only my life but also my feelings, my thoughts, my knowledge, my vulnerability, etc. seemed at most times daunting to me.

You can only share something that which you truly own. If you don’t own your own life then what’s there to share?

I decided to give myself a much needed break by giving myself the permission to simply have no life of my own including a sharing time-out for two weeks and see what happens. After all I had been living(or rather surviving) like this my entire life, so I figured another week or two of this wouldnt set me back. I was just going to be the most closed-off hermit ever. Temporarily.

Within those two weeks I noticed my energy shifting and I felt a sense of relief and liberation. No more pretending of how independent and self-supporting I was. No more exhausting myself by running from the truth. Instead, feeling dependent, unworthy, undeserving, sad, and angry, and being ok with it. My life had been taken away from me a long time ago and I needed to grieve that loss.

By accepting where I truly was, I was able to free my ressources. This in turn led me to a paradigm shift- the true beauty of being stuck is the paradigm-shift underneath, waiting to be uncovered.

I could continue feeling exhausted…or I could continue trying NOT to feel exhausted…thereby staying within the same old paradigm… OR… I could get a life !! I know, crazy idea! A life of my own!!

But how would I get a life of my own? What one step could I take towards having my own say? Given I had no own life and an aversion to sharing, there was only one, very logical, answer: Starting my own blog!

After all it’s where people (you, me) come together to share(yes) stories(lots) from their own lives.(YES!)

A place where I am able to write about my experiences, where I share my pain and my joy, where I connect with readers, and where I talk about things I am passionate about: love, truth, and compassion. Life. MY. OWN. LIFE. Sharing it. Unheard of. Unthinkable. Undoable. Yet here I am, sharing my forth (4th!!:) blog post on my very own blog. Welcome Home!

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 Part 1

Exhausted, drained, maxed out.

Overwhelmed, pressured, burned out.

It feels like I have been feeling like this since forever.

The beauty of this statement is that I have come to appreciate it as a sure sign of feeling stuck. And when feeling stuck the best thing to “DO” is to KNOW you are stuck. So I am smart, AND stuck.

Being already exhausted from waking up in the morning, the day is dragging on by the hour/hour after hour. No energy, but plenty of exhaustion. I fear if I expand too much of my little energy today, I will have even less tomorrow. Making it even more draining to get through the day tomorrow than it did through today’s day.

The highlight of my day is collapsing on my bed an hour after getting up and throughout the day. Perks of holding no job is not having to leave the house at a certain time (or at all), allowing me to crumble down whenever dragging my feet gets too overwhelming.

Times that were used to rest are now times when I just collapse.

I am on a tight budget energy-wise and it shows in every area of my life.

Every move I make is calculated into my ever decreasing energy account, making it very difficult to keep doing the things I enjoy such as writing, meditating, or waking up. I cannot remember what it feels like to have ample energy, or to greet the day with a brimming smile and a bouncing step.

Not that I ever had a day like this in my entire life but my current state feels like its trigger-day EVERY day. And it just doesn’t seem to end.

Since this has been going on for several months now, I am seriously suffering. I can see no way out and Im sick of it. In addition, feelings of despair are starting to arise as well. Despair because I don’t know how I got into all the exhaustiveness in the first place, and because I don’t know how to get out of it either.

Fearing whats it doing to me in the long run and that I will end up in a major depression, I alternate between feeling desperate and trying to NOT feel desperate, hoping for the next day to bring the change so I will feel better and more energized. It doesn’t. I try to reason with myself, telling myself I need to be patient considering what I’ve been through and what I’m going through etc… so I keep waiting for my energy levels to pick up. They don’t.

While I keep waiting for my life to start any moment, NOW, the only thing that seems to change is the cycle of despair and exhaustion accelerating. Turning into a downward spiral to depression and without any indication for things to ever get better.

Still, I have no idea what Im doing wrong. It is only when I realize just how STUCK I feel that it hits me: my energy levels will not magically pick up. I will not feel better. Ever. Because I have gotten in my OWN way.

I am missing something that has been right in front of me all the time. I had been so occupied with feeling exhausted, and then trying NOT to feel exhausted that I have completely lost sight of my life. So much so that I had not been able to see what has now become obvious: I have no life of my own.

Continuing tomorrow…

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They say that there are two ways in life: one is through heaven, one is through hell. One through joy, one through pain.

My one started in hell but when I set out to walk it, I found myself on the path to love. Inmidst pain I found love.

 Welcome to my path.

 I started walking my path several years ago, when I was confronted with a tough choice: suicide or self-esteem.

These were the two words that were on my mind when I went to an online search site.

I typed self-esteem. And found answers. I did not know it at that time but it was in that moment that I decided to stand up to my truth, to face my past and to become a survivor. A survivor of childhood-abuse.

The symptoms I had been navigating over the years were eating disorders,mood disorders, mixed personality disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative identity disorder, anxiety disorders,and habit and compulse disorders. Pretty much most of what the ICD had to offer. Accordingly, my life was one of deep despair and silent suffering. My days were spent numbing out the pain, getting lost in my self-destructiveness as I went.

My authentic self was split off, my personality in pieces, and my sense of self shattered. I was not a constant identity but one that changed by the minute.

All of this could not stop me launching into recovery with all my heart. And head.

Since my head and heart both held very opposite notions, recovery soon felt more like a match of wrestling with neither party willing to give up the fight. After a while it became clear to me that I needed strategies in order to stop circling and to move from surviving to thriving.       Strategies that would bring me peace of mind AND peace of heart.

• One strategy was educating myself about abuse and violence in all its forms and all the subsequent mental health problems.
• The second one became about me developing a relationship with myself based on compassion and acceptance.
• By applying these two, a third strategy emerged: spirituality, my relationship with the Divine, Grace, Spirit, or my Higher Power.

 Committing to Truth, to my Self, and to my Higher Power enabled me to awaken to my humanity and to start living in reality.

These three commitments are the three flags I am waving. And it is within these flags that I will set each of my steps on my path to love.

It is my hope that my recovery brings empowerment, clarity, and knowledge to those sharing the same path and while we need to walk for ourselves, we all can walk it together. Lets raise our flags of love and walk our paths to love.

 

The Reality Strategy, 2011, All Rights Reserved.

Welcome to The Reality Strategy!

In life we are all connected. But what is it that connects us all?

 

It is space. The space between you and me. The space within our lives that enables us to connect with others. It is also the birthplace from which inspiration emerges. A life full of space is also a life full of inspiration. So with this first entry I would like to invite you to my blog space in the hopes that it will be a place for inspiration and connection.

The Reality Strategy-All rights reserved2011.