Where does one begin with this topic? I have sought God to help me with the words, I have asked God if I should even write these words! All I know is that all that has happened to me in my life has shaped and manipulated as well as corrupted my thinking process. Even as I write these blogs, I know that I haven't healed and may never heal completely, although God is trying to help bring me through this nightmare.
I have made awful choices in my life, destructive choices, choices that effected others, but at the time I didn't care. I wish I could tell you that during this time I didn't know Jesus Christ, that I hadn't accepted Him as my Lord and Savior, but that would be a lie. I was "born again" at the age of ten and yes it was real. I knew Him as my Savior, but I didn't know Him as my Father, Comforter, Healer, and certainly NOT as a Mighty Counselor.
Before I go any further God spoke this scripture to me so that I could feel a freedom to share this intense subject. Romans 8: 1 "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit". In the Webster dictionary, "condemnation" means, To find to be wrong; to show the guilt; to announce judgement upon; to officially declare unfit for use. Although I have asked for forgiveness and know the Lord has forgiven me, how can I forgive myself? I still struggle with condemnation!
I'd love to be able to justify my actions, but there is no justification for abortion!! Not only have I experienced it, but I've taken another to do so. I needed to call upon my Counselor, but at the time I didn't look upon Him like that, maybe my love for self kept me blinded. I would love to be able to play the blame game, but in all honesty there is NO ONE to blame but me, myself and I.
In the era I grew up in, people tried to justify these actions by saying as women we have a right to choose what goes on in our body, we still have many who think like that! I'm just curious to know that if these women would have ever had an abortion, would they still feel the same? Could they have gone on living with it day in and day out afterwards? There was another young girl at the time that was going to abort her baby at the same time with me, but her family found out and stopped her...thank God! I see that child and to this day wonder what if? How my heart aches for what I put my unborn baby through! Maybe I was a late in life inconvenience, but at least I had a chance at life. What chance did my child have and even more important, what would that child have become, what mark would he/she have made in this world? If at conception the baby is not alive, then why does it have to be killed? Because at conception it is a thriving, undeveloped human being and that's just the plain facts! The baby IS alive!! However, I got on an airplane at the age of fifteen, flew to New York and returned the same day...POOF...the baby was gone!! How convenient for ME! ME! ME! ME! It was all about ME!
Now, how do I justify this...in church they say justify means just as if it didn't happen... but it did! Everyday I think how, why, what if, what for and where do I go now? When I read about the right we as women are to have over our bodies, I always wonder, what about the right of the child? What about the right to peace of mind...because I was never counseled on how to live with this knowledge that I killed a baby. I harbor such grief and disdain for myself over this. The guilt I feel toward the girl I took to the abortion clinic still haunts me. It's like a cancer gnawing at my guts.
I've always read in scripture that king David had a heart towards God, a pure heart. Yet he saw Bathsheba (who was married) bathing and when he looked upon her he found her to be beautiful in his sight(he had lust for her). King David sent for her and slept with her. Later she tells him that she is pregnant. King David tried everything to get her husband to lay with his wife, even bringing him home from battle. However, Uriah was a honorable man, and because his friends/tribesmen were in battle, he felt it wrong to have comfort and chose to sleep at the door of the king's house, and when David realized that this man was going to be honorable and not sleep with Bathsheba, David sent him to the front lines knowing full well he would be killed. Therefore leaving Bathsheba to mourn her husband for awhile but then free to become David's wife. Which was displeasing to God. David knew this man would die, and sent him intentionally to the battle field so that he could get out of the mess he created with Bathsheba and be free to have this man's wife. After awhile David repented and was forgiven, but he intentionally murdered a man for his gain and yet God still forgave him. Why do I find it so hard to accept that God will do that for me?
I just don't think I should get off that easy, but that is what grace is all about. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see. I'm so terribly sorry for my sins. Jesus says, if we confess our sins and turn away from them, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. I'm sure some of you reading this understand exactly what I am going through, while others find what I have written irrelevant. For those of you who feel the anguish of knowing you killed a human being, I feel your pain. I have no answers, only to say that I too feel the guilt and can only leave you with this scripture...
Hebrews 13:5 >Let your character or moral disposition be free from the love of money---(including)greed, avarice, lust and craving for earthly possessions---and be satisfied with your present (circumstances and with what you have); for He (God) Himself has said, "I will not in any way fail you, nor give you up, nor leave you without support. (I will) not, (I will) not, (I will) not in any degree leave you helpless, nor forsake, nor let (you) down, nor (relax My hold on you). Assuredly not!"
God tells us over and over that He loves us and will not leave us nor forsake us. I know all to well that it seems to easy to be forgiven for such a sin. However, it is man who puts a degree on sin, for in God's sight, sin is sin with the exception of the unpardonable sin which is to deny Jesus Christ. My prayer for those of us whom have participated in this atrocity is that we find peace, love and an assurance of His forgiveness, loving kindness and His acceptance. May we find His saving grace!!
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
Crying In The Dark
I have prayed for direction on how to write this blog, for I need guidance on how to word this as to not bring hurt to anyone. You see I am happily married now to a wonderful man and in no way is this meant to cause him to doubt my love for him, for I truly feel God sent him to me and I love him.
Doctors say that when you are a child, your brain is still in the process of growing and so your thought process, your ability for reasoning is undeveloped. So I humbly ask you to please keep this in mind as I share what I consider my first rejection of love from a boy friend. The reason that I feel this important to share, is to show yet another way sexual abuse can warp your mind. I have struggled far too long with trust issues and am only now beginning to fully understand why my life went so wrong back in my younger years.
As most of us did, we have gone through a first love. For those whom have been following my blogs, you may remember me asking the question, could I ever love or trust anyone? Well, after my experiences with the abuse I endured, I thought I had found someone that I could trust and love. We had a special relationship, full of laughter, special moments together, dancing, talking and sharing our problems. Yes, I thought it was love but most of all I had found a "male" whom I thought was my best friend. Did I tell him about my abuse? No, because I was a shamed of what he would think of me, but we share everything else.
He was wonderful boy. Not only was he good looking, but he was kind, and fun and very caring. His life wasn't all roses and he was a hard worker. He had a paper route and mowed grass, he was far from lazy and he treated me like I was special. I received wonderful gifts from him, for the first time in my life he made Valentines Day, Birthdays and Christmas very special. One gift I have to this day. He played basketball and I was a cheerleader, mainly his cheerleader. I adored the ground he walked on and felt the feeling was mutual. I had fully believed in our relationship and in my innocence truly believed that someday we would be married. That's how devoted to him I was. I thought I'd finally found someone who truly loved me for me and as far as I felt, the very gates of hell wouldn't prevail against our love. I had him high on a pedestal believing that our love was that "pure" love I had longed for. You see I sought purity so desperately!! I wanted to feel pure!
One day HELL came knocking at my door, because he had been advised to break up with me and experience the world. This took me from the highest mountain top to the deaths of despair. My life was shattered! Now most of you have gone through this in your life time and bounced right back, however for someone who has gone through the kinds of abuse that I had endured, it took me to a whole different level. For the first time in my life, I no longer cared about my friends, most of them wanted my boy friend anyway, and to be perfectly frank, I couldn't hang in the circle of friends we both had because I couldn't stand to watch him with other girls. After awhile he decided he wanted to try again, but by that time I had heard some much, that this "pure" love I had held so close to my heart I now thought was gone. For ME the "PURENESS" had been taken from me. I had been told he had given himself to someone else! So I rebelled, I made a new circle of friends and was determined to never let anyone hurt me again...on the contrary...I would be the one who would do the hurting. And I hurt many people!
During that time I think I tried every drug that was out there with the exception of heroin (I was too scared of needles) or else I probably would have. Back then we didn't have crack cocaine or methylene to my knowledge...thank God! I was promiscuous, after all why not, I had been used and abused and it was time for me to be the abuser. I had no respect for myself much less anyone else, and frankly I didn't give a damn. I was on a path of destruction and looking back on it now, I think I wanted to self destruct. I was miserable with myself, I couldn't let go of the past and deep down inside I wanted so much to return to my first love. By that time he had a girl friend and naturally I knew he would never want me now...not now!!
So I went on with my life, drinking, drugging and giving myself to whomever I felt like. I realize now I was just trying to mask the pain of abuse, abandonment, and rejection. I had good men come and go in my life, but I wouldn't have recognized it for I felt so hurt and betrayed, so damaged. I can't tell you the number of times I cried myself to sleep during those dark ages. I did finally marry and had three beautiful daughters and guarded them with my life, until my marriage fell apart. I place no blame on anyone for it was my own dissatisfaction that was the demise of my marriage. However that's a whole other subject altogether.
You see even though I wasn't being abused by anyone anymore, I had become my own abuser. It was like a person who liked cutting themselves, they do it because the pain they feel is so great inside that they have to release it through self mutilation. I was determined to sabotage my life because I felt unworthy to have a fulfilling, wonderful life. I eventually left the hard drugs alone, but continued with the drinking, marijuana and promiscuous behavior. It is only by the grace of God that I am able to write these words down and share my experiences with you. I was on a path of life long unhappiness and if it were not for God sending my husband into my life, who knows what would have happened to me!
Are you out there in this world, wondering in the darkness, feeling depressed, unwanted, unworthy? Do you feel like trash and allow men/women to soil you, or even deluding yourself into thinking that you are the one trashing the man/woman? Are you allowing drugs and alcohol to dull your senses just so you can make it through another day? Is pain, anxiety, the feeling of suffocating getting to be to much? Do you feel like death is better than living? Well, I've been there, felt that, and have even came close to accomplishing death...except there was one BIG reason that kept me from it...my belief in GOD. JESUS said He would never leave us nor forsake us.
I know that Jesus never caused these terrible things to happen to me, nor did my boy friend intentionally try to hurt me . After all, we were young and suppose to explore life. Why these things happened to me, I will never know. I only know that they did and now I have to decide what I am going to do about it? Am I going to let it continue to defeat me or am I going to overcome it? It's my choice as it is yours. I have chose to overcome as I hope you will also. I encourage you to put your trust in the Lord with your whole heart. As we continue on this journey allow Jesus to be your peace, Ephesians 2:14.
Proverbs 3:5,6 Lean on, trust and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him,and He shall direct and make straight and plain your paths.
I truly feel God has had me write these experiences to not only help set me free, but for YOU who is out there crying in the dark! Won't you please trust me and respond to me in a comment? Together with the help of our Heavenly Father we can get through this together. What? You say you don't believe in God? Then let us work together to overcome your pain through sharing our experiences together. You can remain anonymous, just take that step of exposing the shame, a shame that you shouldn't carry any longer. For it's not your fault. You can only changed what you are willing to acknowledge. I promise you... it will be the start of reclaiming your life!
Doctors say that when you are a child, your brain is still in the process of growing and so your thought process, your ability for reasoning is undeveloped. So I humbly ask you to please keep this in mind as I share what I consider my first rejection of love from a boy friend. The reason that I feel this important to share, is to show yet another way sexual abuse can warp your mind. I have struggled far too long with trust issues and am only now beginning to fully understand why my life went so wrong back in my younger years.
As most of us did, we have gone through a first love. For those whom have been following my blogs, you may remember me asking the question, could I ever love or trust anyone? Well, after my experiences with the abuse I endured, I thought I had found someone that I could trust and love. We had a special relationship, full of laughter, special moments together, dancing, talking and sharing our problems. Yes, I thought it was love but most of all I had found a "male" whom I thought was my best friend. Did I tell him about my abuse? No, because I was a shamed of what he would think of me, but we share everything else.
He was wonderful boy. Not only was he good looking, but he was kind, and fun and very caring. His life wasn't all roses and he was a hard worker. He had a paper route and mowed grass, he was far from lazy and he treated me like I was special. I received wonderful gifts from him, for the first time in my life he made Valentines Day, Birthdays and Christmas very special. One gift I have to this day. He played basketball and I was a cheerleader, mainly his cheerleader. I adored the ground he walked on and felt the feeling was mutual. I had fully believed in our relationship and in my innocence truly believed that someday we would be married. That's how devoted to him I was. I thought I'd finally found someone who truly loved me for me and as far as I felt, the very gates of hell wouldn't prevail against our love. I had him high on a pedestal believing that our love was that "pure" love I had longed for. You see I sought purity so desperately!! I wanted to feel pure!
One day HELL came knocking at my door, because he had been advised to break up with me and experience the world. This took me from the highest mountain top to the deaths of despair. My life was shattered! Now most of you have gone through this in your life time and bounced right back, however for someone who has gone through the kinds of abuse that I had endured, it took me to a whole different level. For the first time in my life, I no longer cared about my friends, most of them wanted my boy friend anyway, and to be perfectly frank, I couldn't hang in the circle of friends we both had because I couldn't stand to watch him with other girls. After awhile he decided he wanted to try again, but by that time I had heard some much, that this "pure" love I had held so close to my heart I now thought was gone. For ME the "PURENESS" had been taken from me. I had been told he had given himself to someone else! So I rebelled, I made a new circle of friends and was determined to never let anyone hurt me again...on the contrary...I would be the one who would do the hurting. And I hurt many people!
During that time I think I tried every drug that was out there with the exception of heroin (I was too scared of needles) or else I probably would have. Back then we didn't have crack cocaine or methylene to my knowledge...thank God! I was promiscuous, after all why not, I had been used and abused and it was time for me to be the abuser. I had no respect for myself much less anyone else, and frankly I didn't give a damn. I was on a path of destruction and looking back on it now, I think I wanted to self destruct. I was miserable with myself, I couldn't let go of the past and deep down inside I wanted so much to return to my first love. By that time he had a girl friend and naturally I knew he would never want me now...not now!!
So I went on with my life, drinking, drugging and giving myself to whomever I felt like. I realize now I was just trying to mask the pain of abuse, abandonment, and rejection. I had good men come and go in my life, but I wouldn't have recognized it for I felt so hurt and betrayed, so damaged. I can't tell you the number of times I cried myself to sleep during those dark ages. I did finally marry and had three beautiful daughters and guarded them with my life, until my marriage fell apart. I place no blame on anyone for it was my own dissatisfaction that was the demise of my marriage. However that's a whole other subject altogether.
You see even though I wasn't being abused by anyone anymore, I had become my own abuser. It was like a person who liked cutting themselves, they do it because the pain they feel is so great inside that they have to release it through self mutilation. I was determined to sabotage my life because I felt unworthy to have a fulfilling, wonderful life. I eventually left the hard drugs alone, but continued with the drinking, marijuana and promiscuous behavior. It is only by the grace of God that I am able to write these words down and share my experiences with you. I was on a path of life long unhappiness and if it were not for God sending my husband into my life, who knows what would have happened to me!
Are you out there in this world, wondering in the darkness, feeling depressed, unwanted, unworthy? Do you feel like trash and allow men/women to soil you, or even deluding yourself into thinking that you are the one trashing the man/woman? Are you allowing drugs and alcohol to dull your senses just so you can make it through another day? Is pain, anxiety, the feeling of suffocating getting to be to much? Do you feel like death is better than living? Well, I've been there, felt that, and have even came close to accomplishing death...except there was one BIG reason that kept me from it...my belief in GOD. JESUS said He would never leave us nor forsake us.
I know that Jesus never caused these terrible things to happen to me, nor did my boy friend intentionally try to hurt me . After all, we were young and suppose to explore life. Why these things happened to me, I will never know. I only know that they did and now I have to decide what I am going to do about it? Am I going to let it continue to defeat me or am I going to overcome it? It's my choice as it is yours. I have chose to overcome as I hope you will also. I encourage you to put your trust in the Lord with your whole heart. As we continue on this journey allow Jesus to be your peace, Ephesians 2:14.
Proverbs 3:5,6 Lean on, trust and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him,and He shall direct and make straight and plain your paths.
I truly feel God has had me write these experiences to not only help set me free, but for YOU who is out there crying in the dark! Won't you please trust me and respond to me in a comment? Together with the help of our Heavenly Father we can get through this together. What? You say you don't believe in God? Then let us work together to overcome your pain through sharing our experiences together. You can remain anonymous, just take that step of exposing the shame, a shame that you shouldn't carry any longer. For it's not your fault. You can only changed what you are willing to acknowledge. I promise you... it will be the start of reclaiming your life!
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
I Am Depleted
As I have revealed these horrific life changing events in my life, I have found that it has left me depleted. People have commented that I am strong...I am not! They say I have guts...it's a ruse. You see I'm neither strong or gutsy, I am a survivor! A survivor trying to climb out of the depth of despair. Trying to make sense of this legacy that has kept me from being completely set free. When a person thinks of the word legacy what comes to mind is personal property, money or valuables handed down from an ancestor, something to be proud of. However all I think about is an earlier era in time, that all to often comes creeping back into my mind. This is not the legacy I want to hand down to my children. So with the Lords help and guidance may the memories that have held me captive in the recess' of my mind eventually become one of triumph!
Lately I have found myself surrounded by news of sexual abuse. It's alarming how much of it goes on, but what is most alarming is how others choose to ignore it. What the hell is wrong with the human race? Have we become so disinterested in others that we turn a blind eye when we notice something that is just plain wrong? Are we so desensitized that we just don't care? We not only have strangers, but ministers, teachers, counselors and yes, even parents in the grips of a depraved mind. People hurting people, adults hurting children while others watch and do nothing. Oh, they may report it, but do they follow through? Sadly the answer is usually not!
Do any of you have any idea of what a child/person goes through when they have been assaulted? You can never get back your innocence, the feeling of safety, the peaceful sleep much less peace of mind. Your wholesomeness is gone not to mention your trust. You try to push it to the back of your mind in the hopes that it will quietly go away, but it's always there. All it takes is a news story, a smell, a forlorn look on a child/person face that is so identifiable because you been there, you know it, you feel it, you lived it!
There are so many people crying inside, hurting to their very core. Wounds that are still so fresh, yet the abuse happened years ago. People whom are still ashamed to come forward, either for fear of rebuke from family members or fear from the rebuke of society. We have nothing to be ashamed of. YOU have nothing to be ashamed of. You were unwilling participants that were brain washed into thinking you were willing. Lies, all lies that have held us captive for far too long. We've been held in the bondage of our abusers long enough. Is there hope for us? Can we break the shackles that hold us down?
I believe we can be loosened from these shackles of bondage. It doesn't happen over night and it certainly is a process, but it can be done. I'm not going to tell you that those experiences will leave your memory, but it can be tolerated and even livable. It takes time and a willing heart, but most of all it takes God to help you through this process.
By now those of you who have been reading my blogs know I am a Christian, a believer in Jesus Christ. If you truly seek Him, He will come to you. And YOU whom have just read this and don't believe there is a God. What's it going to hurt to just open your mind to the possibility for just a few minutes or even a few days and ask Him to reveal Himself to you. If you remain TRULY OPEN He will not disappoint you. After all if you truly believe there is no such thing as God, then what do you have to lose? Just go to your bible or if you do not have one borrow one and look up these scriptures.
St.Matthew: Chapter 7 verse 7 and 8 [Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds and to him that knocks it shall be opened].
Then once you have received Jesus go to the book of St.John: Chapter 8 verse 32 [And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free] and verse 36 of the same chapter [If the Son (Jesus) therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed].
Jesus also teaches in St. Luke Chapter 4 verse 18 [The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised].
St. John 3:16 [for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that who so ever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life].
I encourage you to comment, I would love to read your thoughts.
Lately I have found myself surrounded by news of sexual abuse. It's alarming how much of it goes on, but what is most alarming is how others choose to ignore it. What the hell is wrong with the human race? Have we become so disinterested in others that we turn a blind eye when we notice something that is just plain wrong? Are we so desensitized that we just don't care? We not only have strangers, but ministers, teachers, counselors and yes, even parents in the grips of a depraved mind. People hurting people, adults hurting children while others watch and do nothing. Oh, they may report it, but do they follow through? Sadly the answer is usually not!
Do any of you have any idea of what a child/person goes through when they have been assaulted? You can never get back your innocence, the feeling of safety, the peaceful sleep much less peace of mind. Your wholesomeness is gone not to mention your trust. You try to push it to the back of your mind in the hopes that it will quietly go away, but it's always there. All it takes is a news story, a smell, a forlorn look on a child/person face that is so identifiable because you been there, you know it, you feel it, you lived it!
There are so many people crying inside, hurting to their very core. Wounds that are still so fresh, yet the abuse happened years ago. People whom are still ashamed to come forward, either for fear of rebuke from family members or fear from the rebuke of society. We have nothing to be ashamed of. YOU have nothing to be ashamed of. You were unwilling participants that were brain washed into thinking you were willing. Lies, all lies that have held us captive for far too long. We've been held in the bondage of our abusers long enough. Is there hope for us? Can we break the shackles that hold us down?
I believe we can be loosened from these shackles of bondage. It doesn't happen over night and it certainly is a process, but it can be done. I'm not going to tell you that those experiences will leave your memory, but it can be tolerated and even livable. It takes time and a willing heart, but most of all it takes God to help you through this process.
By now those of you who have been reading my blogs know I am a Christian, a believer in Jesus Christ. If you truly seek Him, He will come to you. And YOU whom have just read this and don't believe there is a God. What's it going to hurt to just open your mind to the possibility for just a few minutes or even a few days and ask Him to reveal Himself to you. If you remain TRULY OPEN He will not disappoint you. After all if you truly believe there is no such thing as God, then what do you have to lose? Just go to your bible or if you do not have one borrow one and look up these scriptures.
St.Matthew: Chapter 7 verse 7 and 8 [Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds and to him that knocks it shall be opened].
Then once you have received Jesus go to the book of St.John: Chapter 8 verse 32 [And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free] and verse 36 of the same chapter [If the Son (Jesus) therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed].
Jesus also teaches in St. Luke Chapter 4 verse 18 [The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised].
St. John 3:16 [for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that who so ever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life].
I encourage you to comment, I would love to read your thoughts.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
VICTORIOUS!!
As I'm walking home from school on Friday, I'm wondering what my new and "third" babysitter would be like. As I got into the car to drive to her home, I had no idea what the weekend would hold. By now I'm nine years old. My babysitter has two young children and a husband. I remember my mom driving away as I sighed and walked around the neighborhood scoping things out. There were plenty of kids, and a playground with swings, a merry-go-round and jungle gym. I thought to myself, "that's pretty cool". It didn't take me long to make friends and from this day "two girls"still remain my friends. I have to admit, at first it wasn't so bad. I enjoyed going there on the weekends and for the first time, I wasn't being sexually abused.
I was there about a month when I experienced my babysitter being physically abuse. The husband of my babysitter would go out drinking and come home mad at the world. He was a small guy and had a chip on his shoulder. I've heard it called a small mans complex causing the need to compensate by acting strong towards those smaller than him. Men at the bar would say things to him that would upset him and since he was of small stature he didn't dare try to fight them, instead he would come home and take it out on my babysitter. I've seen such terrible things and have actually feared for my life. I watched this man pull rollers out of this woman's head, try to drown her , throw beer cans at her legs until they bled, slapped her and at the end, held us all hostage with a knife, saying that if the police came he would kill us all, us meaning his children as well as me.
You are probably asking yourself why I never told. First of all my babysitter would plead with me not to and second I wasn't being sexually abused so therefore I felt this was better than what I had endured in the past. But the knife was the straw that broke the camels back, even for my babysitter. And for the first time she was ready to leave and I was free to tell and that I did! I even had to testify at her divorce hearing as to what I had observed. Needless to say, the divorce was granted. And I began to think we were finally safe.
However with the divorce came a different life style for my babysitter. She was wanting to go out more and at times would leave us with a neighbor boy to watch us while she went out. He was in High School and I knew him, he had been around and seemed nice. I was allowed to stay up later than her children since I was older, but also because this kept my mouth shut. One night it was getting late and I was laying on the couch watching television and he approached me and tried to touch me. I was older and wiser and this was NOT going to happen to me again. I refused and stood my ground for the very first time in my life!! Of course this made him mad and he chocked me, but I didn't care, he could KILL me, but he wasn't going to touch me! No one was, not ever again, not without my permission and he didn't!
The next day I told my babysitter as well as my mother what had happened. Of course he denied it, and the sad thing is, everyone believed him, but he was never to watch us again and he never tried to touch me after that! I had won, I may have been kidded about my "exaggeration" that he would even be interested in such a young girl, but I didn't care, for I had WON! For the first time I was VICTORIOUS!!
If a child ever comes to you and says they have been touched in an uncomfortable way, NEVER dismiss them. Always investigate and NEVER make then feel unvalidated. You have no idea how much courage it took for them to reveal the hurt, shame and guilt that they have endured. You have no idea how scared they are of what you might think of them! If they are brave enough to come to you, DO NOT make them feel unworthy or abandoned. Do not brush them off...you may be their only hope of refuge!! And by all means, if you ever suspect a child is being abused, don't ignore the signs, talk to the child, if he/she denies it then watch. If you find that you may be right...report it, it's far better to error on the side of caution then to find out later that you were right but did nothing about it.
I'm happy to say that FINALLY my mother decided to quit working on the weekends, but by that time I was almost able to stay on my own. I had lived through sexual and physical abuse and by this time I had built up a thick skin, a hardness, but at the same time I was still that little girl, crying inside, insecure, with feelings of abandonment, loneliness, shame and guilt. Would I ever be able to feel safe, to trust anyone, to love anyone? Would I ever be able to get the imagines out of my mind? I was damaged goods, but hid it well. I had become a master deceiver, and had a hard heart, but my extrovert personality compensated for all of that and had helped me to keep my secret well hid...until now!
2 Corinthians 3:5 [My power and ability and sufficiency are from God. Greater is He that is in me that he that is in the world].
I was there about a month when I experienced my babysitter being physically abuse. The husband of my babysitter would go out drinking and come home mad at the world. He was a small guy and had a chip on his shoulder. I've heard it called a small mans complex causing the need to compensate by acting strong towards those smaller than him. Men at the bar would say things to him that would upset him and since he was of small stature he didn't dare try to fight them, instead he would come home and take it out on my babysitter. I've seen such terrible things and have actually feared for my life. I watched this man pull rollers out of this woman's head, try to drown her , throw beer cans at her legs until they bled, slapped her and at the end, held us all hostage with a knife, saying that if the police came he would kill us all, us meaning his children as well as me.
You are probably asking yourself why I never told. First of all my babysitter would plead with me not to and second I wasn't being sexually abused so therefore I felt this was better than what I had endured in the past. But the knife was the straw that broke the camels back, even for my babysitter. And for the first time she was ready to leave and I was free to tell and that I did! I even had to testify at her divorce hearing as to what I had observed. Needless to say, the divorce was granted. And I began to think we were finally safe.
However with the divorce came a different life style for my babysitter. She was wanting to go out more and at times would leave us with a neighbor boy to watch us while she went out. He was in High School and I knew him, he had been around and seemed nice. I was allowed to stay up later than her children since I was older, but also because this kept my mouth shut. One night it was getting late and I was laying on the couch watching television and he approached me and tried to touch me. I was older and wiser and this was NOT going to happen to me again. I refused and stood my ground for the very first time in my life!! Of course this made him mad and he chocked me, but I didn't care, he could KILL me, but he wasn't going to touch me! No one was, not ever again, not without my permission and he didn't!
The next day I told my babysitter as well as my mother what had happened. Of course he denied it, and the sad thing is, everyone believed him, but he was never to watch us again and he never tried to touch me after that! I had won, I may have been kidded about my "exaggeration" that he would even be interested in such a young girl, but I didn't care, for I had WON! For the first time I was VICTORIOUS!!
If a child ever comes to you and says they have been touched in an uncomfortable way, NEVER dismiss them. Always investigate and NEVER make then feel unvalidated. You have no idea how much courage it took for them to reveal the hurt, shame and guilt that they have endured. You have no idea how scared they are of what you might think of them! If they are brave enough to come to you, DO NOT make them feel unworthy or abandoned. Do not brush them off...you may be their only hope of refuge!! And by all means, if you ever suspect a child is being abused, don't ignore the signs, talk to the child, if he/she denies it then watch. If you find that you may be right...report it, it's far better to error on the side of caution then to find out later that you were right but did nothing about it.
I'm happy to say that FINALLY my mother decided to quit working on the weekends, but by that time I was almost able to stay on my own. I had lived through sexual and physical abuse and by this time I had built up a thick skin, a hardness, but at the same time I was still that little girl, crying inside, insecure, with feelings of abandonment, loneliness, shame and guilt. Would I ever be able to feel safe, to trust anyone, to love anyone? Would I ever be able to get the imagines out of my mind? I was damaged goods, but hid it well. I had become a master deceiver, and had a hard heart, but my extrovert personality compensated for all of that and had helped me to keep my secret well hid...until now!
2 Corinthians 3:5 [My power and ability and sufficiency are from God. Greater is He that is in me that he that is in the world].
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