A child's prayers (page 2)

myself

Lady Lee, Big Tex, and so many others,

Your sharing has helped others in ways that you will probably never realize. Lady Lee I am glad you did not delete your post. There are many of us out here who have suffered. I am one. I haven't related it to very many. My abuse wasn't to the extent that yours was, but it was abuse none the less, and there is an anger that lives with it. The shame that was linked to it melted away as I realized it wasn't anything I did to cause it. It was motivated by an evil selfishness.

Lady Lee

I think a lot of people find it hard to imagine real evil. Most of us who have been abused have seen it in the eyes of our abusers.

My abusers never looked me in the eye. They looked at body parts - to hurt or hit but not me. I was a tool for them to unleash their self-hatred, powerlessness and rage.

But I looked them in the eye - before and after. I saw the powerlessness before. I saw the evil and slef-hatred during. And I saw the rage after as if to blame me for their lack of control.

So often as victims we carry those things for them. It's as if by their act they displace those feelings and put them on the child. Not knowing any better we carry it.

Recovery for me is about giving it back. It is about searching inside to those backened dark corners of my soul and finding those things that are not authentically me. And cleaning them out.

Each poem I write, each bit of prose is a cleansing for me of things that are not me

And sometimes I am left with a hole that needs to be filled in place of what is cleaned out.

Getting support and validation helps to fill the hole with something healthy and positive. It replaces all those displaced feelings and beliefs about who I am. Accepting new beliefs about myself roots out the darkened palces and fills those empty spaces

SheilaM

LadyLee: I am so sorry and the work was beautiful

Ghost of Esmeralda

(((((((((Lee))))))))))))) I am glad you did not delete it.

I'm crying sitting here, thinking of you in that church. Big Tex, your post was beautiful. You are two rare and beautiful souls.

That child still living in you needs to hear over and over again from others that she is beautiful, good, and lovable. You are all those things, Lee, and more. You have given a great gift to others who have survived what you've survived because some don't have the ability to put their thoughts into words, but you can, and do so eloquently.

That little girl is sweet, kind, loving, pure, innocent, beautiful, and good. She is still inside of you, untouched by anything any other human could do to her. She radiates from your soul and the vision is so lovely.

I say that as someone who once told her therapist that her inner child "was dead", I just wanted you to know that I know how it feels to not see yourself the way you really are. I wasn't ever sexually abused, but still as a child felt so worthless that when I grew up, I felt as if that child I had been was dead.

Now, when I look at pictures of myself then, and I think, that little girl didn't do anything to deserve getting hit upside the head so hard she saw stars, she didn't deserve to bear the brunt of the frustrations her parents had in life. She was just a child, and so were you.

And we were good. We really were. If God can't use his power to help children like you were...and Tex was...then what the hell good is he anyway? What is he waiting for?

This is why I really can't believe anymore...as much as I'd like to. I just can't.

(((((((((((((Lee)))))))))))))))))

sorry for the ramble, hope it made some sense, my thoughts just ran away from me. Thank you again for your post, I am glad you didn't delete it.

hugs,

essie

Lady Lee

Thank you Sheila and Essie

How sad that a child has to believe a part of herself is dead. Your child lives hidden somewhere inside too.

I worked so hard to be good, to do all the rights things, to not make them angry at me. Nothing worked. I thought if I could do things right they wouldn't get angry and hurt me. But I wasn't the problem. They were. it took me many years to realize that. But I know it now.

And so does this little girl - me dressed up to go to church by myself

Lady Lee

essie

had to come back to say

I think I'm finding it harder to believe in a loving God

one minute I say that and then I find myself telling someone else that He is

talk about confusing!!!???!!!

Big Tex

Lady Lee

She is beautiful, just as I thought. If you'll notice there is a hint of sparkle around her. Thank her for having the courage to make an appearance. And please give her another hug from me.

I believe we did try to be good, but just because that effort was not rewarded does not take away from us. I believe there was a spark inside each of us that craved more than we received and when we did not get that from the people who should have given it to us freely and with joy, we set out on our own and made it for ourselves.

Here's to the children we were, the pain we lived through and the life we built on our own. And to hope, that over the next hill, or the next day, the next person we will find something better.

There is always hope.