Catching Lightning

How do you handle it when people are not in the same place in recovery you are in? Depending on how much I am around the person, I may start out compassionate but then end up very frustrated. Tonight I took a step back and really started to think about why I get so frustrated with a survivor that seems to want to stay where they are and not move forward.

Everyone’s abuse (trauma) is different. No set of details is the same. Some abuse happened over a long period of time, some short term, and may be sometimes it was just once. It does not matter. It is all abuse and it all takes time to recover. The journey is different for everyone. There is no set recovery plan. The only similarity it seems is that everyone needs to take it in one way or another. Everyone’s feet must hit a path or road to recovery. How far they go is their choice. A choice that cannot be made for them.

Our similarities are in the issues and problems we have to deal with along the way. There is no set order to when we face them, but they will all have to be faced in one way or another. The list I made, and it is in no way complete is as follows. We will all have to deal with trust, safety, self-esteem (value), love, intimacy, anger with abusers or even God, sex, and faith. We all have to go through the stages of grief.

One of the things I have learned to love about group is the differences. We are all in different places. There are some of us who have been through several sessions of group and then there are those who are just starting to recover. After the first few sessions, depending on the dynamic, we begin to really see each other, trust each other, and healing begins. I have heard many heartbreaking stories along with many triumphs. I have seen people grow, including myself, and it is always encouraging. I have fussed, withdrawn, cried, and laughed in group. I have been encouraged by other group members to grow, have been pushed past my comfort zone, and loved by them. I am always learning from them. It has been an amazing amount of support. Without God, my individual therapist, and group I would not be anywhere close to where I am today. It is an amazing feeling. I never knew how much I needed other people.

An extremely frustrating thing about group can be when someone else just does not seem to get it. Actually it is more like they do not want to get it. There have been a few ladies, including me at times, who seemed to fight dealing or seeing with the real issue. Denial is an understatement. They are afraid to see because of how much it will hurt and no matter how much the group tries to help nothing is gained. So again, how do you handle it when people are not in the same place in recovery you are in and seem to refuse to even try?

Leaving group tonight I pulled around to the back of the parking lot to leave. As I moved around the building I saw something beautiful. I could not see the clouds in the sky but I could see the lightning behind them. It was a yellow glow. I know lightning is dangerous and if it was closer I would be afraid of it, but from a distance it was beautiful. I pulled my car over and tried to record it on my phone. God’s power through weather has always amazed me.

Anyway….as I was watching the lightning, every once in a while it would not just be a flash behind the clouds. A streak would actually appear that I am sure struck a part of the earth. In the few minutes I stood and watched, I realized my healing through counseling and group was similar to lightning show before me. The glow behind the clouds represented recovery on the surface or may be what I had already learned. A glow of hope in the storm clouds? The lightning streaks were the moments I really understood what had happened and how I could now break free. The streaks to the earth could be seen as the times realizations hit my heart and mind about what was happening and how I needed to push through it. I stood there for a few minutes more and then got back in my car. Almost the instant my door shut it occurred to me why it is so frustrating when a survivor cannot see what you are trying to show them, at least why it is so frustrating to me.

Through therapy and group I have learned things about myself and the recovery process I never thought possible. I have grown and have experienced such freedom from the abuse, especially in the last few weeks. Each lady in group has had some of the same growth and experienced the same freedom, whether in small pieces or in huge chunks. The point is that we have all gotten a little of our lives back and we want the same for those we love. When I see a way  survivor is being hurt and not taking care of herself I want her to see it from my perspective. I want her to see what I am seeing in her life so she can recognize it and do something about it. I want her to grow and take care of herself. I want her to see that I really do care about her and that is why it is frustrating. I want her to see the same lightning I have experienced. I want her to see the glow in the clouds. I want her to experience the same hope and freedom I have felt and seen. I want her to chase the lightning.

The problem with this is that I cannot do it for her. She has to make the choice to open her eyes and be willing to recognize things that are very unpleasant and painful. The survivor has to be willing to fight to get her life back. She has to fight for the freedom and hope that I pray she sees in the rest of us. I have been selfish in that I want the survivor to start trying so I do not get as frustrated. Instead, I need to be patient. I have run and tried to hide from the truth so many times. I know how wasteful and painful it can be. I need to be compassionate yet still speak truth in love and not out of exacerbation. I need to be a gentle example and not have a sharp tongue. I need to remember that I have been her.

Some day, if I am lucky to be around when it happens, I want to love on her, push on her, and encourage her when the lightning strikes.

Trust Without Borders

Trust in the Lord forever, For in God the Lord, we have an everlasting rock.
Isaiah 26:4

Trust. Ugh. People have broken my trust and I have broken theirs. Next to forgiveness, trust has been an incredibly difficult concept to work through.

I think there are degrees of trust. There are people I can trust more than others, which makes sense because everyone is different. People are fickle and unpredictable. There is no constant simply because people change over time; it is inevitable.

As I child I had a blind trust of everyone, as I believe most children do. It is basically a sense of safety a child has, until someone comes along and steals it. A safety can be stolen or lost in several different ways that have nothing to do with abuse (divorce, tragedy, etc). My sense of safety was lost with my parent’s divorce and stolen with the abuse, both of which occurred within the same time frame.

I cannot recall ever really thinking about trust until I was around 17. My decisions/feelings were centered around a lack of trust in others subconsciously up until then. I still make decisions on whom I will trust or degree I will trust someone based on childhood events. Even then, the trust almost always develops slow. I give a little at a time, testing the waters, and trust as far as the limitation I have established. There are people I do not trust because of their past behavior with others, what I have seen (heard) them do, and sometimes it is just based on a feeling about them. Sometimes a person I come across gives me a “bad vibe” and is quickly placed in the untrustworthy category. Completely usual for an abuse survivor? Yes. Healthy? Not so much.

Trust issues have the potential to isolate. I keep people at arm’s length a good part of the time, convinced I am the only one who can keep me safe. People in my life are unfairly judged based on my trust issues. They are not given a fair shot and the only person who is at fault is myself. Of course there are those who have broken my trust and hurt me deeply. Whenever it happened my first response was to completely cut them out of my life or put up a wall to prevent that person from hurting me again. Essentially, I would run away physically or emotionally rather than deal with the issues and heal. It can still be my first response at times, but I have learned over the past few years it is not always the best response. I have been forced to recognize my own untrustworthiness and accept we are all human. I can look back now and see how much I would have missed had I continued to kick people out of my life over trust. I continuously fight the urge to run because it is difficult to deal with the pain and put forth the effort to heal a relationship.

Trust issues have also made a relationship with God difficult for me. I have trouble trusting him based on relationships I have had with people. This seems an unfair reaction but all we have to base our experiences on are the earthly ones. The magnitude of God, his powers, and trustworthiness are beyond our scope of total comprehension. It is faith based. When faith in mankind has been squashed beyond recognition, it is hard to accept God. How do you accept a loving, kind, trustworthy heavenly father by faith when your example on earth is the complete opposite? Learning to separate earth and heaven becomes more difficult.

God never has to earn our trust, because he has never given us a reason not to trust him. I have gotten confused about why things happened to me and the motives behind them, but that which is evil does not come from God. He is the savior and the one who sees us through. He has shown us how trustworthy and constant he is, we just have to take the time to recognize it.

By awesome deeds You answer us in righteousness, O God of our salvation, You who are the trust of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest sea; Psalm 65:5

God has never broken his promises or my trust, yet I treat him like he has. I do not bring everything to him. I hide it, trying to take care of it myself, and not surrendering myself to him. I have failed to trust him with my feelings, secrets, and life. I have not trusted his promise to all of us.

Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? Matthew 6:26

God has promised to take care of me. We are his choice possession. In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we might be, as it were, the first fruits among His creatures. James 1:18. God sent Jesus to die for our sins. There is no greater love than this. Jesus wiped out our sins and made it possible for God’s forgiveness and through the acceptance of Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we are promised eternal life. This is the ultimate promise, a promise He will never break. God has always taken care of us. We may not always agree with what happens to us. We have found ourselves in horrible circumstances where it seemed God was not with us.

For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us. 2 Corinthians 1:20

God wastes nothing. He will take whatever circumstance brought into our life by force or by choice and turn it around. In our worst times, times we think survival is impossible, God was with us, allowing us to survive and providing a hopeful future, if we trust in him. I need to trust God with my future. I love this promise: “For you would forget your trouble, as waters that have passed by, you would remember it. “Your life would be brighter than noonday;Darkness would be like the morning.“Then you would trust, because there is hope; And you would look around and rest securely. Job 11:16-18

People will fail us and our trust will be broken. We will fail others and break their trust. God will not do either. God’s trust is supernatural, never failing. I have to let go of my life and give it to God. Trust him. It is unrealistic to believe I can give it all to him in one fell swoop. I let it go a little at a time. This is more for my benefit because God can handle it all, every bit of it. He will listen to our cries and comfort us without limits. He will always be there and never let us down. And those who know Your name will put their trust in You, For You, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You. Psalm 9:10

It is a daily struggle and I need to be reminded daily, sometimes every minute, how much God has kept his promises to me and how I can trust him with my heart and life. With full confidence in God’s promises, there is nothing that can stop me. There is nothing on earth that can keep me from the future he has planned for me.

In God, whose word I praise, In God I have put my trust; I shall not be afraid. What can mere man do to me? Psalm 56:4

Rock Bottom

Rock bottom is a place most people like to avoid. It is considered a place no one wants to be, including me. Rock bottom means different things to different people. Everyone’s rock bottom is at a different level. Sometimes we may think we are at rock bottom but there is so much further to go. If we are lucky, and this time I was, we are stopped and/or helped before we hit that point.  

When you go to a physician’s office or the emergency room, they will often ask what your pain level is on a scale of 0 to 10; 0 being no pain and 10 being the worst you have ever felt. Again, this is a range that is different for everyone, some have a bigger tolerance for pain. Emotionally I have been at hovering between a 7 and 9; today I hit 10. I am hurting so very much, but there is a huge difference between this pain and the pain of my past. The difference is I have had to recognize my own responsibility for this pain. Through a series of bad choices I have reached a different rock bottom. It is unlike the pit of depression I have been thrown or fallen into, I got here by myself.

I have made several choices in the last couple of months, many of them were made without thought of the present or future. I chose to put aside healing, put aside my relationship with God, and just settle for bad substitutes. I chose to hide emotions, drift through group, and try to remain numb. When remaining numb on my own became more difficult, I started over medicating. I abused my prescription drugs and started drinking with them. I slept from the time I got home from work until the next morning. I lost count of how many pills I would take in a day. I took my eyes off Jesus and fell into the bottom of a prescription bottle.

During the entire time this scenario progressed I never thought I was losing control. I honestly thought I still had everything tied up neatly and nobody knew the difference. I was so very, very wrong. I felt things start to unravel. People I worked with or spent time with started to ask me if I was okay. My mind was confused and I had trouble maintaining productivity at work. I started to become afraid. I became terrified that I was going to “lose it” or have a breakdown and I would have to admit I needed help. I was afraid of becoming vulnerable. My life was spinning out of control and I had no one to blame but myself.

One night in group I just started to cry. There was not a specific trigger I can recall that started it all, but I could not stop. I told the group how out of control I was feeling and my fear of appearing weak. I was vulnerable in front of others in a safe place. The group encouraged me to take care of myself and make valuable time for healing. They encouraged me to take care of myself. They loved me despite the vulnerability.

I would love to say the rest of the week went well, but by the end of the week I was in a behavioral health center. My facade of control was gone, not a shred of it was to be found. How I finally agreed to go is not as important as the fact I went. It was the last place I wanted to be; however, it was the place I needed to be.

According to Merriam-Webster, rock bottom is defined as, “the lowest possible level or point.”  I then decided to look up the word rock. I expected it to describe a large mass of stone or something similar. The first definition that came up, however, was “to move (someone or something) back and forth or from side to side.” This simple definition changed my view of rock bottom. What if I changed the meaning of ‘rock bottom’ in my heart?

No one is holy like the Lord! There is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God. 1 Samuel 2:2

I was in the hospital for 5 days. The withdrawal was unpleasant and continued after my release; however, my biggest issue was not withdrawal; it was my attitude. I followed all the rules, participated in group, was cooperative, and did all the things I thought would get me discharged quickly. I put my emotional barricade right back up. I did some writing but nothing was really sticking. I was drifting until my 4th day. I found out that morning that I was not going to be released later that day. Somehow the realization cracked the wall and I started to cry. I went into my room, lied on my bed, and just let the tears of disappointment flow. I had failed.

Later the same afternoon my mother called to check on me. We had a long talk and by the end I was crying again, right there in the main room, in front of everyone. My mother simply had reiterated what my support group and therapist had told me. She encouraged me to accept I was not getting out and embrace the opportunity before me. She told me to “scrape the bottom” and figure out why I was really there. I returned to my room, sobbing, and continued for at least an hour before falling asleep.

When I woke up I really started to write. I wrote down everything I was feeling, good and bad, and about how and why I was there. My husband had brought my Bible but they would not let me have it for a couple of different “safety” issues. I had to reach deep within and remember what I had learned previously and verses I had memorized. I remembered the strength of Jesus; a strength I never had but one he could carry me with. I thought I was at rock bottom, but really I had just found the rock I needed to stand on.

“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Matthew 7:24.

I still have a path to follow, a difficult one. God has laid this path for me and will lead me through. It will continue to really hurt at times but there will also be days of hope and happiness. My choices need to be based on His word and not my own thoughts. My choices lead to a semi-voluntary admission into a hospital. Focusing on God’s choices for my life and having patience to wait on Him, who has always been there, will lead me to His kingdom. There is no comparison.

Be my rock of safety where I can always hide. Give the order to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress. Psalm 71:3