Healing the Past

Life is not fair. People are not fair. Things happen that can't be undone.

We can only get through it, accept it and go on.

We make a decision on how we are going to let it affect us and our lives.Sometimes we get so focused on the rage of what happens to us in our lives, we don't realize that we are not alone. Many have traveled the road we had and yet, unless we talk about it we never know that they are the only ones that can understand our pain.

There is a line about being upset on didn't have shoes, until the person met a man who didn't have feet. Granted looking around and realizing that there are others worse off than us may help us count our blessings, but it doesn't end the damage and pain to our feet and the fact we have no shoes.

I always had the attitude in my life that I am better for what has happened to me, but it was one way not to deal with the pain and the damage. Yes I thought I went on in my life and I could avoid the pain, but sadly I carried it with me.

Childhood memories and scars are carried with you all your life. Some people may have a, what I call a "cough up a lung" attitude. No matter what you say they "had it worse" They weren't in your shoes and they can't understand you pain, they many times can only see their own and they can't accept that any would could have had it worse than they did.

It is not a pain contest, it is all bad. Abuse, any abuse is neither worse nor better than any other and are often part and partial. When being physically abuse, verbal abuse seems to part of it. The abuser likes to demean their victim and explain why what is happening is their fault.  Experiences mount up and the victim feels, if I hadn't done this or that it wouldn't have happened. Mistakes happen and children are not adults,they are beings who are learning. Positive feedback will encourage good behavior. Demean a child sends the message with labels that destroys their self image. It become confusing be cause everything becomes an issue of black and white, good or bad, there is no middle ground and no were for the child to go here.

After my Dad came to my rescue as my mother tried to cut off my head with a steak knife when I was young, after she pinned me to my bed, his  response was, "This never happened. Forget it and never speak of it."

Not only did I got through this of many traumatic experiences, my Dad's idea of triage to the impact on me was, in my opinion, to not recognize how horrible it was for me, nor reassure me that I was loved. It was another day with another "acceptable" experience with pure abandonment.

Over the years this happened and I began feeling I didn't count. I was not  allowed feelings, I wasn't given any reassurances that he would do anything that would make a difference in the future.

There is nothing that can be done to change the past. This incident like hundreds of other are somewhere in my mind and there is no resolution.  There is no compensation for what I went through.

For years I spent time crying and going into depression. It is hard to expect others to love you when even your own mother tried to take you life. My heart cried out, why can't anyone love me. Why do I wind up getting hurt by others?

This is life, there is no free ride. There is no free lunch and people can be cruel. The worst mistake is to believe you deserved it.  In abuse, the punishment doesn't fit the crime, yet that is the point of it.

I am not a bad person. I didn't not deserve what happened to me. None of us did who were abused.

The only choice we can make is to live with the tragedy day after day, year after year tormenting ourselves with answers that will never be know or we can accept what happened, realize that we can't change a thing in the past, only the choice we make in the present and work towards a better future.

With a focus on forgiving, which is actually a gift we give ourselves, we can release the pain and hurt from our minds and go on. We can be the people we want to be.

Many overcome hardship and pain to go on and live productive admirable lives achieving great things. They did not let the past impede their progress in achieving their goals in life. They chose to focus on the future and what it would to take to get them to be where they want to be.

Only until you decided to let go of the demons of the past, can healing come in. The pain you received from others was a long time ago. They may have passed on or forgotten the horrible things they did to you, but it is you that flames those fires of pain and hurt from the past. Just let go and let God.

Forgiveness is a healing process but in the end of that process, we need to just let go and say Good bye.

I hope today, this last day of the year, than many will be able to reflect and start 2009 with a fresh start!