Life begins when you learn where you came from and tell the truth.
I would not be who I am today if I hadn’t learned that principle. God was the one who led me back time and time again.
I was Daddy’s little girl. I was his favorite. I received special gifts from him throughout my childhood. I was the one he picked to sit by him when we watched a family movie.
I could have just left my story right there. Full of deceit, decay, and rot. I did not.
God built the courage inside me to see the truth of my past. Seeing my truth has been severely difficult. Nothing about acknowledging the depths of the despair in my childhood has been easy.
I know why people change their story. Not for their abusers, necessarily, but for themselves. They cannot live the pain one more time. To see things through an altered reality is much easier — for today.
I write of this often because the challenge to get back to yourself is the challenge that is before every survivor of incest.
“Traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside. They learn to hide from their selves.” (p.97)”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
You can trust me when I say God is big enough for the challenge of finding your realities. It is the path to freedom. It is what opens the doors to your prison cell.
