mercy or punishment?

Unless you've lived my crazy story, you may not understand the perpetual processing of past trauma that happens. 

Thinking back to the day my tiny four year old body was mutilated on the insides. Nothing is more horrific than that moment. Unlike other memories that caused awful emotional and physical pain, this one can't fully heal. Why? Because the damage done inside my body was permanent. It didn't just cause scars, it caused permanent nerve damage, damage that would stop me from ever experiencing the pleasures others do during intercourse. 

Yet in the days, months years and decades that followed my body was used and violated over and over and over. I've read in some books, that sometimes women felt pleasure during rape and or sexual abuse despite the horror of it all. They then feel confusion, and guilt for that part of thier experience.  

I only remember feeling shame, physical pain, repulsion, and discuss, for myself and what was done. I did not experience pleasure, even when raped as an adult.

So could it be that the worst part of being sexually abused and raped as a tiny child, was in fact a mercy?

Can torment be mercy? Can heartache, or terror be mercy? 

Fragments of my mind

I wish for a moment that I could listen to the thoughts of another person so see how others minds are. I only know mine and it has been fragmented by Cptd since I was very young. 

I can't even count how many flashbacks I get in a day. They aren't necessarily crippling but they certainly impact my whole being and how I see myself. 

I feel ar war within myself on a moment by moment basis. I imagine rejection by others, then try to convince myself that I'm just catastrisizing. If overthink everything, playing imaginary conversations in my mind of how I wish it could go. Sometimes these imaginings keep me up all night.  This happens any time there is stress in a relationship,  and I'm triggered by it, fearing rejection and wanting desperately to explain myself fearing all be misunderstood, like in my childhood. 

This Cptsd is a crazy making experience. I want a steady mind, not a fragmented mind, that swirls with anxiety, fear, insecurity and awful memories.  

No one knows my story from beginning to end, no one knows the details. A part of me wished someone wanted to know and would be safe to tell. I feel like I've carried this nightmare alone for too long. 

Until then my story will remain as broken fragments of my messed up mind. 

Grace

When we think of parts of the world where people have no freedom, no voice, and no choices, that is the closest glimpse we have of what life would be like without God's profound grace. 

We experience his Grace so abundantly every day that we may have become forgetful.. or even oblivious to its incredible impact on our lives. 

I saw grace today:

In the support systems God has placed around me

In the love of my patient husband

In the beautiful creation around me

In the provisions I have

In the gifts I've been given

In the healing I experience daily

God's grace impacts every part of our lives.

Triggers that baffle

The crazy making part of complex post traumatic Stress syndrome, is the subtle daily triggers. 

This week it was en email. I found myself feeling misunderstood, panicked, defensive, inadequate, anxious and utterly insecure. It wasn't because someone actually said or did anything to evoke those responses. Rather, it was a trigger. 

Something deep inside of me that I can't pinpoint yet was triggered. Past rejection, past misunderstanding, yet no matter how far in the past all those negative cognition came upon me like a storm, robbing my sleep, making me restless with obsessive thoughts and anxiety.

Cptsd can be like an internal ticking bomb, the only problem is that the detonator is hidden in the depths of our memories, often blocked out due to  the pain associated with it. 

The email trigger today made me feel like a teenager, fighting to be heard, understood and believed. So, I would be led to believe the trigger is routed in trauma from that time period. It's like a younger part of myself calling out for help. 

I  need to calm the younger me and remind her that it's 2022. I've got this. I'm not being rejected, misunderstood or unheard. I AM valued, safe and so there is no need to be afraid any longer. 

I don't have anyone trying to harm me. I can rest, heal and breathe. 

Triggers are a shadow of the past that deceives our minds into thinking we are still in harm's way, decades after the harm has past. 

Thankfully as we acknowledge our past, face the pain and process it, we can heal and eventually eliminate those triggers once and for all. 

Christmas Miracles

CHRISTMAS Miracles still happen!

Have you considered doing something nice for a person this Christmas, but are wondering if you should? Perhaps it feels awkward? Perhaps you wonder how it will be received? 

Let me share my Christmas Miracle and see if that changes your mind. I was a single mom. We had been in hiding for two years, after escaping abuse and attempted manslaughter. 

I was now a struggling single mom, with three traumatized kids. I had moved to a new town and didn't have work yet. The idea of Christmas was daunting. I wasn't sure how we would have enough to feed my kids and pay the bills, let alone get gifts for them. It seemed impossible! But God is in the details and he had a plan.

Someone had heard the story of how my seven-year-old son's life was threatened by his dad, and how we fled that very night. They heard of how God had miraculously cared for us in so many ways, helping us to escape the violence, the stalking and the terrifying death threats. 

That someone traveled back east and told their family members about God's hand on our life and the crazy nightmare we'd survived. The family ( complete strangers to us,) got that burning sensation in their hearts that they had to act. 

Meanwhile, the kids and I were preparing for a humble Christmas. The kids and I would often spend time worshiping together in our living room. As we did one night, we felt the Holy Spirit prompt us to take the food we had left in our cupboard and give it AWAY to someone we knew was in need. The kids and I all prayed and knew God was speaking clearly to our hearts so we obeyed, knowing that we now had nothing left. We had No food, no money in the bank, no options for Christmas, but at that moment we all had complete peace. We knew God had miraculously brought us out of harm's way. He had provided a home for us to stay in, he had answered so many impossible seeming prayers. So we knew God had a plan. 

The next day, we opened the mail and there was a cheque, from strangers in Ontario who obeyed God's prompting to provide us with a Christmas. They sent a cheque for $1000. which not only provided gifts for everyone, but food and some money to take care of a few needs. 

I often wonder, what would have happened that Christmas if they refused the nudging of the Holy Spirit. I wonder if they realize that their obedience not only gave us a beautiful Christmas but it permanently impacted our faith. We knew without a shadow of a doubt that God was our provider. I knew that he was now my husband. Even years later I heard one of my kids share this story and how it let them know that they weren't fatherless, God was the good provider and was their father. 

Often we don't know even half of the struggles a person is facing. We also don't know the eternal impact that our obedience may have. So if God is prompting you to do something this Christmas for someone..... Do it!