Off Balance …

The hardest part of life is making a decision that requires you to deny part of yourself for something society believes to be more important.  Happiness is only temporary, but contentment is lasting.  Contentment is defined by understanding and knowing who you are then fully accepting and embracing all of you with an open heart.  To deny parts of yourself only opens the door to anxiety, defensiveness, and guilt … usually under the guise of someone or something else.

As November slowly approaches, I feel my underlying anxiety creeping it’s way to the forefront of my daily life.  I have denied several pieces of me for so many months now, believing that I needed to focus on what I ‘needed’ to do, and finally it’s all caught up to me.  Who I am, who we all are, is a question we struggle to answer on a daily basis because of our constant distractions, emotions, tasks, needs and requirements of that day.

Today, I find myself reflecting on who I am, searching for the basis of my anxiety … trying to understand the reason why this overwhelming feeling has once more returned.  I know it’s a compilation of things, but I’ve come to understand something deeper this morning.

I’d like to share something I wrote a few days ago with you …

One journey.

Sometimes getting back into the swing of things is much easier said than done.

The last time I met with my lawyer, she said something to me that I haven’t quite been able to shake till now.  She told me that as she read my pieces on here, she realized that I wasn’t quite out of the fog as she had thought I was.  Since that day, I have found myself trying to prove (to myself) that I am indeed out of the fog.  Silly as it sounds, I was living life by avoiding everything that would remotely remind me of what used to be.  That is until I realized that for those of us that have lived in the fog, there will always come a point in time that although we are out, we will have our moments with one foot in the light while the other slipped back into the darkness.

I tried to explain to her the reasons I felt were important to understand why it may appear this way to her, not seeing that I was actually making excuses.  It was a hard admission I had to face.  I was in denial, to be honest.  I couldn’t possibly believe that after all this time, how hard I’ve worked, and how intensely I have fought … that maybe, just maybe … I was back at where I started.

Yes, it’s possible.

Just the other night I was asked,

“If you’re married, how can it be rape?”

No matter how many times I have been asked this question in the past,it still amazes me that so many people continue to ask it.

The true understanding of rape, even sexual assault, comes from recognizing and comprehending the difference between an act that is sexual in nature and, an act to gain and/or maintain power and control over a person. These are two very different acts that should not be misinterpreted to be one and the same.

Rape is an act of power and control. The sexual nature of rape is just the means used to gain and/or maintain power and control over a person.

When one understands this fact, one will understand that rape in a marriage is very possible.

Heritance of abuse …

Background: This is my response to the letter of my sister-in-law’s sister regarding the situation of my nephew’s recent rehabilitation confinement for drug and behavior abuse. Recently widowed, my sister-in-law is now faced with the solitude and void that her husband left while her 47 year son steps in front line and center bringing to light her acquired behavior of helplessness.

Thank you Nat for an in-depth analysis and appreciation of the situation.  Often, we on the outside, detached and distant have a totally different take on the matter.  Now it is clear and obvious what has to be done.

Yes, I agree that Ludy is suffering from BWS ‘battered woman syndrome’.   As much as I love my brother, Gary, I cannot be oblivious to the dynamics of their relationship as a couple.   BWS ‘battered woman syndrome’ is a very real problem and blankets all kinds of abuses, from physical, psychological, emotional, financial, and sexual among others.   A lot of us suffer from it, some mild while others are intense.   Sad to say, a lot of us women take it to our graves because the church blatantly re-enforces it and conditions the women to just take it and offer it as a sacrifice.

The making of an abuser …

A lot has to be said for how an abuser was as a son, brother and boyfriend.  One can’t be so different the other, for love has to be the fundamental ingredient, if not by choice than by affinity … for one can not truly love without loving your own.

Abusers almost always never leave their prey.  And, if by a remote chance they do, they hold steadfast to their faulty claim with firm control through whatever means possible …