This post is for you (and everyone else of course).
This is me now.
An adventurous journey away from the teenager I was then. Life is funny (and I don't mean 'ha, ha' funny).
I look back on my life and I don't like the middle of the beginning. I think I liked the start. I was young and giggly. The family clown and adored by my parents. What can I say, I arrived on the planet happy.
As I grew more aware and able to process I realized that my family was unhappy. I had a mom who was not in love with my dad and a dad who adored my mom but was ill-equipped to deal with her. I had a brother who's defense mechanism was to disappear (he really did, I think he is a shaman) and a brother who was prone to violence and alcohol.
I became the 'fix it' girl. Happy and flexible, was who I became. My Dad used to call me, "The dirty dumb blonde at the bar". I was everything that my mom wanted me to be. Pretty, self-involved, skinny, and stupid.
Most importantly I became the sexual play toy of my disturbed brother. For years.
I played the role to appease him, to make him tolerable, to ease the tension in the house, to make the disappearing one appear once in a while, to make my parents not fight....a whole slew of mis-guided, not old enough to understand life yet, reasons.
It was my role, the 'fix it' girl.
I loathe who I was.
I was 25 years old when I realized that I was my own self and not the image of who my mom wanted me to be.
I was 30 years old when I came out of the closet and announced to the world that I was an incest survivor.
I am 46 years old and I have once again discovered the child that I lost. I have not lost my faith in humanity, I believe in forgiveness (not that I can throw myself into it but I know it exists), I believe that I can still be the happy being that I arrived on the planet to be, I believe in love, and I believe in making love.
I have not yet discovered how not to loathe myself during those abusive years and the years up until I was about 25.
It used be that I felt like I walked around with a big sign on my head that said, Hey, look, I'm an incest survivor. It was all I talked about and it was who I was. Now, I feel like I share selectively and know that the person I am now is a summation of all that I have been.
So, my friend from the past...
I feel very vulnerable in contacting you. How do I expect someone to have liked me when I couldn't even like myself. Oh, those retched high school years.
My father passed away and an old friend (from our circle) came to the service. She came up to me and we were chatting and I blurted out to her that I so disliked myself in high school that I can't imagine anyone else liking me. Her response was that it was such an honest and healthy thing to say. I made me laugh...she was good medicine.
Maybe, you and I, talking with each other can be 'good medicine' too.
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