One Layer, One Step

There is a procedure that is done to burn victims called Debridement. The reasons for this procedure is to remove unhealthy tissue by scraping dead and contaminated material from the wound to promote healing and reduce scarring. My wounds from my past had masses of unhealthy, dead, and contaminated infections. Their was only one way I was going to be truly healed and that was through the Good Shepherd. I had to give him the scalpel and let him start scrapping away the layers one painful step at a time. Sometimes even the slightest touch would trigger waves of overwhelming pain. Just like my walls I had many layers within layers that were infected.

Rage

My anger was so deep that it became a seething volcano of pure rage right underneath the surface. At any second, I could explode and lash out at anyone or anything around me. This level of rage was exhausting, but I also found that the intensity of it kept me going.

I was in a treatment center for a little while and the staff worked with me on my rage. There was a room called the Anger Room. It had a punching bag hanging from the ceiling. I was in that room often during my stay until one day I started punching the bag without boxing gloves and knocked the bag right off the chain and it went flying across the room. My hands were severally bruised and many ligaments were torn. I was also the first patient to ever be banned from the Anger Room.

My children lived in fear wondering when mommy was going to fly off into a rage. I knew exactly how they felt because I felt that way about my father. The “Church People” never saw that side of him, just his family. I walked on egg shells around both of my parents never knowing what would set them off. And now my children were doing the same exact thing with me.

I was so full of rage one day I pounded my fist into the wall until I fractured my hand so I wouldn’t have to play the piano at church. I was tired of wearing the “church mask” and showing up every Sunday faking it and being religious.

Self-Loathing

My self loathing was one of my biggest festering wounds. I would tell myself I needed to die. I am worthless. I am weak and pathetic. I don’t deserve to be comforted. People just put up with me. I hurt everyone I am around so people should stay away from me, I deserve to be treated poorly. I lived with a father who was a perfectionist and I soon learned that I could never do anything right. I deserved any punishment I could think of to give myself.

Shame

I was so ashamed I could barely stand to look at myself in the mirror. I remember one time my therapist encouraged me look in the mirror and tell the person looking back that she was loved and had nothing to be ashamed about. I couldn’t do it!  I felt ugly on the outside and on the inside. I absolutely loathed that person in the mirror. I hated everything about her! I was depressed. I was a bad person. I felt dirty, stupid, and worthless.

Grief

I would rather smash someone or something before I would want to deal with any grief. Starting to deal with grief made me angry. Getting angry kept me from crying. No crying allowed! “Stop that crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!” I remember being so proud of myself that I learned to take beatings and not cry. I had a lot of losses to grieve. My Innocence, the loss of my childhood. the loss of a loving family who should have been there for me, the loss of feeling safe, the loss of feeling peace and joy. I would get terrible headaches and tense up whenever I felt like I might cry. I would scream silently to myself. “NO CRYING!” and pinch myself or dig my fingernails into my skin. I was continually reminded with patience and lots of reassurance that is was ok to cry.

Isolation

I felt so alone. I had people all around me but I couldn’t and didn’t want to relate to them. But at the same time I felt I desperately needed to have someone to turn to; to reach out to for help. It takes a lot of courage to reach out to others. Reaching out can mean rejection and ridicule. I was a loner in grade school and most of high school. When I would try and join a group of kids they would move away from me, or make fun of me. I still remember when the church youth group I was in, lost me on purpose at an amusement park church youth function. I wondered around the park all day by myself until it was time to meet everyone at the designated place. They laughed and poked fun at me all the way home that day. If my own youth group at church (so called Christians) couldn’t even stand me, I must be pretty awful to be around and it was better just isolate myself from everyone.

Fear

I would have horrible panic attacks and nightmares. I was afraid to be in large crowds of people. I was afraid to be nice to others for fear they might hurt me. Growing up I could not express my fears openly so they stayed bottled up inside my mind and my body. As one layer begin to heal, another fresh wound would appear and then I had to recover from that wound. All the hurt I went through did not come all at once. In order to heal I was going to have to move through the layers. It was overwhelming and I felt like I wasn’t going to make it and I was going to die. I slowly found out that as my mind and body healed, my fears were not so paralyzing to me.

At times it was very hard for my family and closest friends to know how to deal with me, understand me, or support me. But they never stopped loving me. I would have never finished this part of my healing without my therapist, my best friend & her husband, my very patient husband, and all the prayer warriors that were silently lifting me up throughout this whole process.

In my eyes they are steadfast examples of Corinthians 13:7(NLT)

Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance.