Losing the Pain

Gaining victory over the pain and discovering harmony.

I’m sure that there are some who think, “There are just some things a person cannot get over. Some things you simply cannot forgive.” I’m saying that yes, we can get past even those things and learn to have harmony in our lives. I’m sure some are thinking, “You don’t know what happened to me, what someone did to me. I just cannot forgive that!” My answer to that is yes, even and especially those things have to be sorted and forgiveness has to be given to them and to yourself or you can never have the freedom to be happy ever again.

Now I’m sure that you are thinking, OK what if someone raped me, how can I forgive them? My response is you can forgive if you want to be able to live and love. How do I know? I’ve lived through it more than once and I’m telling you that you choose to either hold onto the pain and guilt or let it go. Now let’s just say for a moment that I decide to hate those who hurt me. Does the person hurt because I hate them? Not at all! Who does it hurt and destroy? ME.

It is a fact that bitterness and hatred held inside can not only cause pain but can also begin to break down the body and cause illnesses. It’s certain that the health that I’ve found myself in the last many years of my life were largely due to the internalizing of pain and the attempts at coping I’d done throughout my whole life.

As a child, my folks had some friends that they used to go play cards with. I’m guessing I was about 9 when all this happened. Now we had me and at least 2 of my younger brothers and the other family had a young girl also named Karen and she had two teen or nearly teen brothers. Once the adults were busy playing cards they had us kids play in Karen’s toy room. But I wasn’t left to play with the younger kids, unfortunately. Those teen boys decided I was fair game for something beyond my childish comprehension. I cannot remember most of what happened thank goodness. I do know that one would entertain himself while the other stood watch at the door. I’m not sure what they told me but it was deeply imprinted that I shouldn’t talk of what had happened. This was not by far a one time thing either. Every time the folks went there I was abused.

One time that family even came to our house and before it was all said and done the boys had taken me to the barn and abused me there too. That must have broken down something in my mind and in my heart because I remember having a series of vivid out of body experiences. I remember going in the house and sitting alone while the rest were all outside. I sat in front of the TV watching some cartoons. Then it was as if I were outside my body and floating up to the top corner opposite the one the TV was in. I remember looking down and seeing myself sitting there and feeling like I didn’t want to go back down to my body. I wanted to keep going up and away and never go back in there, only the ceiling had stopped me.

I’ve pondered upon that for many years and I feel that when that abuse happened to me there at home then I felt like I no longer had any safe place. I never remember making a conscious decision to do so, but it seems that not too long after that I began to put on weight. I can only surmise that since I was now afraid of boys that I wanted to hide as best I could and to derive comfort from food and insulate myself with a cushion of fat was a way to avoid the attention I never wanted again. Those habits began and I still battle those habits today. When I get upset I literally ache and if I eat then those aches lessen.

I’m working to try and retrain my mind and body to stop those cycles and to eat healthier things. I’ve also been working to pull those shards of pain out of the depths of my heart and discard them. At one point in my life I thought of hunting those boys down and confronting them. One part of me screamed that I needed closure and I needed to vent that anger and pain that their thoughtless and careless actions cause so long ago. The other part of me asked, to what gain?

What good would it have done me really to have hunted them down? The logical side of my brain figured that their stunts were part of their growing up. Was it right NO! But did they mean to hurt me, I doubt that. If I had hunted them down and they were now married and had children, if I had confronted them and tried to press charges for example, not only the men who had done the deeds would have been hurt but also the families they had now. It was more for the sake of those families that I didn’t follow through. I couldn’t bear to hurt others as I had been hurt.

I had to make the decision in my heart to give it up, to forgive those old trespasses against me because it was only slowly killing me and no one else.[I found out recently that my folks had never had any idea of what had happened to me.]

I sometimes wonder if there was a victim sign imprinted upon my forehead because several times as an adult I also had unwanted advances even then. Maybe part of the guilt from what happened as a child made me feel I couldn’t scream no. I’m not sure but I do know that I’ve had to not only forgive those others but most of all I had to learn to forgive me. Now I never asked for any of those attacks yet somehow I always had a sense of guilt. I guess in a way I always hated myself for being weak or for even being desirable.

This is a work in progress within me and I’m daily making changes for the better. Oh never doubt it’s tough work and some days it’s one step forward and two steps back. I’ve always had very deep roots of faith in my life but even with that, it was the acceptance of my friends over the years that helped me see myself in a different light and gain so much ground in this healing progress. Sometimes life can simply knock our vision of ourselves totally flat and we have to see through the eyes of others to see what worth we do have. I’ve made the most progress in this healing in the last year due to the constant acceptance and building up given by my dearest friend, Ed.