Mirror, mirror on the wall...
Last night I dreamed of something hard. I woke tense with a heavy cloud hanging over me that had nothing at all to do with the rainy wintry day outside. I carried the heaviness with me into the kitchen to get coffee. I sat with it as I sipped from my cup and made our breakfast. I walked with it as I did the few chores I needed to do.
And then I came into my workroom to write the morning pages and found myself writing about the dream. I didn't go into deep details. They aren't necessary. But it's what I did after my brief description of the dream that resonated hard with me. Because you see it wasn't just a dream. It actually happened to me, and I dreamed a memory I'd pushed hard into the background.
While I have never before shared an actual entry with you all, I'm going to share a portion of what I wrote this morning.
...I release that trauma. I release my own feelings of guilt and shame. I let go of it now, once and for all. I release my anger and the betrayal of (my ex) and (a local official). It's done. It's over. I do not need to carry this into my future. It can serve no further purpose in my life. It is over.
I suddenly felt so light and so unburdened. The clouds lifted internally.
Perhaps my psyche knew this was something that needed to be unpacked and removed before I journey forward another step, hence the dream. It forced me to stop and look at this incident in my life once again. Like all trauma, it must be seen in the light of now not just in the light of the past.
But I need to do something in order to move on.
I don't need to share the story of what happened to me. I've tried but it feels wrong. So I've deleted all that part of this story. But I know that I have to share this part.
I have to forgive me. Or at least the young woman I was then.
I forgive the young woman who had no idea that she had a right to be protected and defended by those who didn't prove capable of either of those things. I forgive the woman who stayed silent. I forgive the woman who felt embarrassed, and shamed. I forgive the woman who felt guilty because she'd been harmed. I forgive the woman who blamed herself. I forgive the woman who believed she deserved to have horrible things happen to her. I forgive the woman who was so unloved that she didn't recognize her right to feel secure and safe within her marriage her family, or her community.
I release her. She was young and vulnerable. She had no one willing to protect her.
I can't protect her now. I can't change what happened to her. I can't do anything at all for her, but I can look at her from this distance and say, "I'm sorry. You didn't deserve it. You didn't set the stage for it to happen. You weren't to blame. You shouldn't have felt shame."
The past is over. It's done. And maybe now, I can move freely on.
Another great blog. I imagine most of us women have something along those lines in varying degrees. Two different times male friends of my father's groped me when I was a girl. Once I told my mother who brushed it off. The second time, years later, my mother was dead and I NEVER would have told my father. He lived in a constant state of rage anyway, and he would have amped it up AT ME. No wonder so many of us women feel of so little value.
ReplyDeleteI think I felt my SAFEST when I felt utter repulsion and uncomfortable around a man who worked with John. I told him eventually that the man made me feel very uncomfortable, and John said, "Well then you don't have to be around him. I don't like him myself!"
DeleteBut I do agree that often women find themselves in the position of being pushed into situations and others blame them instead of the man responsible. I remember a girl in high school who was raped by a maintenance man at the apartment complex where she lived. Of course, everyone in high school soon knew about it, since it was a small town then, but I was shocked even then at the number of people who felt she somehow deserved it because she was rather well built...Not flirty, not immodest, but at fault because of her genetics! I don't think she even finished high school after that went public...
I am very sorry this happened, Terri. You did not deserve it. You did not cause it. And you do not have to carry the shame. I am always in awe of your self awareness and natural wisdom - it has taken tens of thousands of dollars of therapy for me to be able to release and heal from my (different ) trauma. Sending you love and light.
ReplyDeleteKim
I think Kim, that all of the time I've spent alone in my life, I've had plenty of time to mull things over and sort them out. It's taken me years to reach the level of healing I have come to, but I find that there are always a few things that went under the radar as other things were being sorted in my mind.
DeleteI also believe the books I read in my life (copious number of good solid books though most of them were fiction) also helped to stretch my understanding and realizations about life and such.
Dear Terri, your post here simply reinforces my theory that good people always first blame themselves when something that shouldn't have happened happens (no matter how major or minor it may have been). Thank you for the example you've shared on the freedom gained by releasing the undeserved blame/shame.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Tracey x0x
Thank you, Tracey for saying I'm a good person. It's often in question in my mind when things are tough. But I did realize in 2015 that I had to change ME in even more ways and that change had to be forgiveness of others as well as myself.
DeleteIt’s amazing how very hard it is to forgive ourselves - often the hardest person of all to forgive.
ReplyDeleteThis is truth!
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