How to LOVE after ABUSE…

I wish that I could say that this is easy.

Because it is not. I work hard at this every single day of my life to the point that it is exhausting. But, I truly want to be on the other side of this story and learning to love after abuse is one of the hardest things I think that I have ever done.

This comes in all realms of relationships, not just romantic relationships.

I had the trust of family taken away from me starting at the age of 4 and going on through my entire course of life. 21 out of 25 years I spent trying to figure out who to trust again, how to trust again, how to get passed it all. But, I will admit that it is difficult to do when you started life, at the youngest phase that you begin to remember, that you can’t trust anyone.

That is how I started life, during my time of not only being physically and sexually abused by siblings, I was mentally, verbally, and psychologically abused by a parental figure. Every single place that I looked there was no place, no person, nothing that made me feel safe or that I could trust.

These are the things that I remember. Being a four year old little girl… and the only thing that I remember is that I was unable to trust anyone.

I wrote this poem a few years ago…. and it is called… 4 Year Old Memories…

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Flash backs and memories 

Mistakes consuming me 

Wasting so much energy 

On a past and what I used to be 

The innocence taken from me 

Before I even knew me the real me 

I don’t get it 

You used it as an excuse 

To take something from me 

Because it was taken from you 

To subject me to the horror you consumed 

Doesn’t make it right 

It only takes something from another who stood a chance at a normal life 

Now sits in a whirlwind of what’s wrong and what’s right 

I would never subject someone’s body to the pain I’ve felt 

Or plant images in someone’s head of the things I’ve seen 

Because it was my pain 

My tears wasted on a cold pillow case 

I would never want anyone to feel the way I did 

And still feel the way I do 

Because it’s not a feeling anyone should ever go through 

I was four years old 

Didn’t even know my abc’s 

Yet you wanted me to be grown and know the things I shouldn’t see 

Yet and still you went through the pain and suffering 

But I was nothing to you so you made me know what it was like to be broken 

To feel like nothing

To feel incomplete 

To feel like a worthless little girl taken advantage of by someone she called her sister 

But you didn’t care 

And you left me to stare 

At the shattered pieces slowly hitting the floor

You opened up a door 

One that couldn’t be closed 

Broken off the hinges 

No where to turn 

No where to hide 

No where to be but cold and alone 

But it didn’t happen once and not just with you 

It happened with you and the others I called my family 

The people I trusted the most 

Killed me eternally 

Yet here I am fifteen years later 

Wondering if my life would be different if you weren’t the beginning to this abuse 

But you were the beginning 

And you weren’t the end 

Because others saw the broken pieces written on my skin

And took it for granted 

And placed more bruises upon this fragile skin 

And I’m so hurt deep within 

Because you took my innocence before I had the chance to even begin my life 

You took my state of mind before I got the chance to have a normal childhood 

Before I knew about the fears of the world 

Before I knew about the struggle of reality 

You took my dreams and turned them in to nightmares 

And now I’d rather be awake then try and go to sleep 

Because in my reality 

At least I have the chance to be the four year old girl you took away from me 

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I remember I was awake one night and all I could do was write. So I wrote that poem above because that was all that I could see and that was all I could feel.

I then shared that poem with the one man… the one person… my guardian angel…

I shared that poem with the one person who I owe my life to…

I shared that poem with my father. And my father is my life, he is my everything. He is the ONE…. who I gave time to learn how to love after all the abuse I endured. He was the ONLY person to allow me to feel safe, strong, beautiful and like I had a reason to continue in this world even though some days I didn’t want to.

Going back to remember when there wasn’t anyone I could trust. There was a time, probably about 7 years of my childhood that I didn’t know that he was the person that I could lean on. And one day out of curiosity we had a conversation about life. And about him. And about me. And we began doing that every single day on my way to school. It seemed to only be me and him. And I formed a forever bond. He became that one person that I could trust. That one person that I could LOVE after ABUSE.

When I say LOVE after ABUSE.

I mean that whole heartedly. Learning how to LOVE anything or anyone after ABUSE is by far the hardest thing to do. How do I trust him? How do I know she means what she says? How do I know that when I cry they will be there to listen to why my soul hurts?

But I have learned. I have been learning. I have been teaching myself. And the one thing that I have learned the most is that I cannot allow fear of being hurt stopping me from being loved and loving.

So I chose to, for most of my life, open my arms to everyone. And to allow love to circulate through me regardless of the outcome, and that is why I am able to stand on the compassion that I stand on… every single day.

In order to love after abuse, you have to love fearlessly. As scary as it has been and as scary as it continues to be, I have to. I have to love fearlessly. I mean it is ridiculously hard because my anxiety tends to lead the way majority of the time, but having that reminder every now and then that it is okay to be a little afraid, but to not let the fear control me.

The number one thing I had to remind myself of was to love me, first.

And that amongst all was the hardest thing I had to learn to do. Was to love me first. I had to love me through the abuse and put myself back on my own two feet. I had to do this so that I could make sure that anyone else would want to love me to. It was very difficult doing this though, because every time I had to try and put myself back on my feet, I got knocked off my feet again. Which is why I am doing all of what I have been doing for the last year. I have been learning to crawl all over again. I am learning to crawl before I walk. And in doing so I have to be happy with what I see when I look in the mirror. I have to love what I see. I have to love me… And I am indeed learning to love myself.

But, back to what I was saying… I never got the chance to fix myself in the past. Or work through anything that I had ever been through because I was on, what seemed to have been a fast track to trauma. (Not laying in my sorrows here… just talking). But every time I was able to get to a place to repair my wounds, I was back on my ass crying from the next thing rolling in. So I never got to work through things. And working through them are a hell of a lot better than pushing them to the back. So for the last year, I have been trying to work through these things that have been pushed to the back. So, so, so, so, so far back.

I have made mistakes. I fell flat on my ass… as many times as I could count. BUT, I am choosing to learn how to walk all over again. And right now, I am so madly in love with crawling. And I am wildly excited to see how amazing it feels to take my first steps on this side of the abuse. It looks incredible from here.

 

How to LOVE again…. AFTER ABUSE.