Steaming Ahead.

“Everything was perfectly healthy and normal here in Denial Land.”
― Jim Butcher

     About a month ago I sat in the car with one of my closest friends, one who knows most of my story and I told her my plan to forgive.  I told her some of what I learned about myself and that I realized, this is a wall between me and God, between me and my future.  Why?  Why can I forgive a man for raping me, for molesting me, for beating me and all that horrible stuff, but I can't forgive these two?  She just so matter of factly stated, "Because they are the ones who saw you naked."  Huh?  Being molested and full of body shame I right away
began to scan my memories and that did not happen.  But then it slowly registered what she was saying.  She continued, "Your mother and your pastor are the two people you should be able to trust in this world."  Yes, she was right.  They should be.  Many will ask why I feel it is acceptable to talk about the two of them on this blog.  I know they will deny it, they have been doing it for years.
     Another "Aaaaha moment" in the archeological dig for shame was reading this in the book Released from Shame - Moving beyond the Pain of the Past by Sandra D. Wilson Ph.D.

I once read one of the more amusing revelations from postglasnost Russia. It seems the chief of the principal mapping agency admitted that for the last 50 years Soviet mapmakers deliberately misplaced rivers and streets, distorted boundaries and omitted geographical features on public maps. The article went on to say that the correct maps were still "top secret" in the Soviet Union long after space photography allowed foreign countries to make their own extremely accurate m...aps.

"Pepole did not recognize their motherland on maps. Tourists tried in vain to orient themselves on the terrain .... You can get maps of our country in many countries of the world except U.S.S.R.," the (Moscow) evening paper ... complained recently. "From whom, one wonders, are we keeping secrets? From ourselves?"!

That's a good question - one you might want to ask yourself. Unhealthy families (and church families) are famous for keeping secrets from themselves. And as a loyal child you might still be trying in vain to orient yourself to life with a parent-drawn (pastor-drawn) map of secrets and lies.
No wonder you've lost your way and feel confused. You need to begin following a new map charted by truth. But that won't be easy because in unhealthy families, truth brings pain.

 

 

    I have always felt like this.  I have a different map.  I want to get out, but my map is designed to keep me in.    I have a parent-drawn and a pastor-drawn and I can't get anywhere with them.  So many people choose to live in the lie instead of finding freedom, instead of accepting responsibility, instead of putting others before themselves, instead of doing the hard painful work it takes to be completely free.  This book is one of the few that is changing my life.  This came from the same book. 

 

In a study of 14 adolescent males on death row, the researchers observed that 8 of the 14 had injuries severe enough to require hospitalization ... 12 had been brutally abused and 5 had been sodomized by relatives. Their parents had a high rate of alcoholism, drug abuse, and psychiatric hospitalizations. The boys had tried to conceal all this during their trials. They preferred to be seen as bad rather than admit that they were ... victims of ... abuse. The parents often cooperated with the prosecution (and even urged the death sentence) because they had an interest in concealing their own actions.

 

 

     I read a book years ago on confronting your abuser.  It said they would either deny and call you crazy or break down, admit the truth and beg forgiveness.  I confronted one of mine and he denied, said I was crazy just like the book said.  I knew he knew the truth because of a sentence he said word for word in the book.  It was total confirmation.  After that I held my head up and he looked at the ground.  But then my mother decided to stay friends with him and his wife.  At one time she even had them in a picture on her fridge.  I had told him my parents knew, they all knew, but when she did nothing to support me, he went back to holding his head high and I felt like a pile of dog shit steaming on the sidewalk.  I asked her why she had his picture on her fridge and she said it was too uncomfortable to end the friendship.  See, the dog's comfort is much more important than the dog shit.

     They will deny and continue to live the lie.  They will live in the shame by choice, just like I have done for so many years.  I won't do it anymore.  The truth is the truth and I will forgive them for making me believe I am ... was a pile of dog shit.  I am not.  I could expose the lies, but I think seeing the truth is more valuable.  To find out you are not a pile of dog shit is good, but confusing, because then what are you?  Instead I want to show people they are children of God, not born of their past anymore, but born again.   

 

 

“There is a moment in our healing journey when our denial crumbles; we realize our experience and it's continued effects on us won't "just go away". That's our breakthrough moment. It's the sun coming out to warm the seeds of hope so they can grow our personal garden of empowerment.”
― Jeanne McElvaney, Healing Insights: Effects of Abuse for Adults Abused as Children