Changes...

Wow...it’s so hard sometimes. Change is a part of who we are. Change is evolution, it's growth and experience but damn it's hard. In my marriage change usually meant some version of pain was coming. It's been a long road to walk, learning that change isn't something to be abhorred. It's necessary, we can't stay stagnant. Stagnation is like sinking lower and lower in a single pit, never climbing/stepping out of a simple pot hole that erodes over time. No, we can't stay stagnant. Sometimes all you can do is just breathe, push all the fears and negative emotions to the side and just breathe. I had to do that this morning. It's very hard for me to resist change. Life is about moving forward but it’s okay to be sad, you just can't stay there. Life is about the good and the bad. The pleasures and the pain. You can't appreciate one without the other. I admit, I'm sad. My son is losing a staff that has been with us for 2 years. She was the first person I ever trusted with him after I left my marriage. She's been a part of this journey, she's been so much more than his HI, she's been my friend, an example of the type of person I hope to be in a few years. I will always remember what we learned and went through together. She was right there with me when my son started showing signs of physical and sexual trauma from my ex. She's helped him learn and grow and progress such much in just 2 years it's staggering. We will miss her. 

Experiments

So today is a catch up because quite a few things piled up and I haven’t written lately. Stress! Holy Cow, we’re all stressed out which is in turn shortening our tetramers aging us and causing more unseen damage but that’s a piece for another time.

Sometimes it feels like I’m in a hurricane, stubbornly walking into it; my school schedule, the boys different school schedules, school meetings, speech and occupational therapies, counseling, and now we get to add medical appointments thanks to my car apparently being “hard to see”. The summer just flew by and fall semester hit me between the eyes.

Honestly though, a 92’ white Ford Taurus is hard to see?

So I hope you had a good summer and I for one am ready for fall. Now let’s talk about the experiment I had over the summer. It was “introspective homework” experiment to weigh and measure where I am emotionally, psychologically, etc. In other words, dating, (que Bethoven’s 5th Symphony notes)

I have to say it’s a time investment. That’s the most neutral observation I’m walking away with. I took an experimental month and I put myself out there to see what the singles world is like now…Ewwww…iiick…ouch…those words fly to the tip of my tongue on this one.

The most important skill I utilized was “critical thinking” and analyzing, seeing past the smile or pretty words to see the person underneath for who they were and not what they wanted to show. I mean, I blocked at least 50 men in the first 3 days because good lord the standards have dropped for men and women alike though I’m going off the reports I’ve had from friends for the females out there. It’s very sad..

I had to filter out the endless amounts of plain ridiculous, disgusting, and egocentric men to look for the qualities I wanted. Earlier this year, I wrote out an actual list which is still on my closet door of the 50 positive personalities traits I want in a man right next to the list of Red Flag behaviors that you can spot in others which will save you from dealing with quite so many douchebags.

Despite the obstacles this was good for me. It helped me see where I am now and how far I have come. Two years ago, after I came out of the marriage from the black beyond, I was cynical, jaded, angry and I had still yet to truly work on my self-worth and respect. I am proud of the progress I have made. So many people build up the idea that they must be with someone to be happy, they can’t even conceive the notion of not always being in a relationship.

If I learned nothing else in my marriage I learned this, two halves DO NOT make a whole in relationships. That’s the bottom line. The door swings both ways on the concept that you must respect yourself before others will respect you. We don’t live in a world where that’s not the case. It’s hard to take the microscope on yourself to improve and revamp what you want to be but it is worth the effort you put in.

If you compared the past “dating” (highly generous term when applied to that time) I did after my divorce compared to now you wouldn’t believe the difference. I wanted to feel good, feel pretty, blah blah but I hadn’t done the work yet. Now, I feel the change through the hard work of counseling and working on myself. I know what I will and won’t have in life and I have every right to demand it. There’s no use trying to fit someone in a spot that they don’t match. So often, we want to make a relationship work that just never will. No matter how many times you whip the horse, if he’s tired, you’re not going anyway.

Now going through this process, I actually did find someone that was a good person. We dated for about 3 and half months but it turns out we are in different places in life though I’m actually very happy to  know I can open up emotionally and psychologically which are huge for me. My jaded, sarcastic and cynical cuteness is my security blanket. I don’t want to give them up without a fight but we must seek balance. The best way I can describe how it feels to strip my barriers down is like having one of those rubber band balls and attempting to pull 50 off at once. It’s possible but they snap back into place very quickly. All of the hard work over the last year and half have been stripping those old and frayed ones off to reveal a strong and capable person underneath the layers.

The biggest lesson I learned from all of this is boundaries. Boundaries are important because you need them for yourself and others. It's unhealthy to jump into the physical or emotional deep end of the pool without really seeing that person in the shallow end and working your way out. Do you need to hide who you are? No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that the only way you’ll see a good person of substance is through a gradual process of getting to know them. This “Netflix and chill” thing going around creates a false sense of intimacy, you’re playing house with this person. Do you really get to know them that way? No, you see so much more by social and public interactions. How do they treat people around them? The more time you spend with a person out in “spotlights” the more you will come to see true aspects of their personality. People hide who they are, we all do but without boundaries I married a narcissist and spent 5 years in hell. Is that a risk you want to take? I’m good, been there, done that and now I want something real, good and whole or nothing at all.

You can do this

I know it hurts, everyday does. When you stop and think long enough to feel.. it feels like there's spider fractures everywhere. It's like a giant spiderweb of cysts hardening into one giant scar in your chest, your core. It's okay, this will end one day. The scar will harden and then you won't bleed anymore. We'll always miss and lament what we lost but we can build on who we are. We can go and see the world with the boys. We'll get that red tailed boa, we'll name him Ringo. The emptiness will get shoved aside with other parts of our life. No matter what keep going, we need this. Don't give up. You're stronger then that, you helped others get where they needed to be. You have the boys to guard and love. Live life, enjoy every sensation, every heart ache and joy. Laugh at what life does and what happens. Love yourself and your children. You grew them, they are you. They have your in their faces and their mitochondria. Don't think that they are ever the problem, the world is. They just need you to show them how to step on the toadstools of life as they go.

Identity

So I listened to Hoziers' Cherry Wine the other day and it made me stop and ponder. It reminded me of my marriage. The song is from a male victims point of view but that makes little difference because at the core of the song it's the same message. How we lose our identity over time.
What is identity? It's what defines you as you. What you like, don't like, your dreams and aspirations, your self respect, self esteem, self awareness. They all make up your individual identity.
How do abusers take that away? They take measured and deliberate steps to program you, no this isn't a conspiracy statement, it is simply fact. Abusers work very hard to destabilize your perception of the world so that they can turn you into exactly what they want; a subservient slave with no real mind of their own.
They all follow the same pattern though they are different people. They make the choice to abuse you and strip you of your identity. They were not born this way, they chose this. The story of an abusive childhood may have been true but the choice that was made was voluntary. If you want to truly change....you work at it everyday of your life.  We choose to be who we are everyday, pleasant and positive or a self centered void of a person. I had to choose like so many before me and it was not easy...there were times I wanted to rage and curse the world. I was angry and rightly so but life is not a movie. We do not get the “closure” we see in movies...real life is very different.
What happens as a result, we take a step towards a future that never was natural path for us. The resilient, we survive that future, we accept out responsibility for the choice we made and we push forward. This is a hard path with many curves and bends in a once “straight” road. There is no easy path in life, only an easy assurance that life is what it is and you choose everyday how to address that. Empower yourself by being the type of person you want to be, not what “life has dealt you” it is easy to blame, not to change pun intended. :)

Smile like you mean it

Hi there, I hope you had a good weekend. Valentines means different things to different people. I can make many jokes but that’s what facebook shares are for. I’m here tonight to talk to you about a quote I read last week.

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”

― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

What does this mean? In my opinion it means life is about living. That can apply to you no matter the scenario. Most days, I have to remind myself to make the conscious decision that I will live today. It is easy to get caught up in life, caught up in the injustice, caught up in the drama. (Insert Van Wilder quote: It’s like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but you never actually go anywhere.)

If I’ve learned anything in the last 6 years it is that life can pass you by and that fateful day when I woke up I asked myself, “Where did the time go?” The answer is, well life kept going. There is a peaceful assurance in that; the universe keeps on being, plants continue to grow and that breathe of life is still there waiting for you. I woke up in October of 2014 from an abusive relationship and I made a choice that seemed to boggle some but it made perfect sense. What do I do now? I will live! I suppose I could’ve dove into a bottle but that’s not living, that’s escaping. I had two little boys to think of. We celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas with my family then I jumped feet first into a new life. I found help for myself and my boys. I hit the ground running and I'm still running after what I want from life.

And it’s true life isn’t meant to live alone. If you’re like me you need your recharge/zen time to center yourself but life is about interactions. We are a social species. I fought my basic instincts when I let myself be isolated away from family and friends. Without those relationships life can feel like you’re at sea: hectic, distracting, beautiful, powerful, free ,chaotic, energetic but it can also swallow you up nearly drown you and slap you against a submerged rock. Support is important, without my supports I wouldn’t be nearly so far down the road to healing as I am. Let’s face it, it’s much more fun to hit the Deadpool premiere with friends that it is alone though Deadpool was awesome in any case. :)

It’s not easy, I’m not telling you it is. I’ve had many struggles in the last year and a half but here’s a little secret: No matter what the problem is/ the day is like, it is always better than the life I had before. You know the best part? It’s that I can make tomorrow even better then today was. Can I change the world? That’s a big negative but I can choose how I react to the world. There’s an empowerment in that decision and it makes all the difference to my perception and attitude.  Look inward and outward, take back the control of your life. You’re only having a bad day and crabby because you choose to, not because the boys tried to dive off the the couch and the wailing mass of limbs are now kicking each other, after all they found by experiment that gravity and acceleration laws are real. I have tons of these examples..seriously...

My sister is a great example of this point: My youngest niece is under 2 and full of energy and righteous indignant fury when riled. My sister was at the store with her mid tantrum and my sister was laughing instead of the normal reaction of frustration most parents have at that point. The store clerk gave my niece a balloon all the while surprised by my sisters reaction.

You can’t control everything in your life, no one can, but you can control how you react, how you handle the situation. Laugh at absurdity, laugh at life and smile like you mean it. Don’t give life or others power over you and your emotions, take back the power! It’s a great feeling, try it for a week and see for yourself!   :)

Life gets crazy sometimes...

How did I get here?
My voice rings loud in my head.
Did I not see the evil?

Hi there! My name is Rachel and I'm a survivor of domestic violence.

Mahatma Ghandi once said: "Start changing yourself if you want to change the life around you."

Man, that's intense for some people and I get that but the truth is; abuse is so common these days the ones who haven't been touched by it are the minority.

Now for introductions :)

I'm a single mom of 2 traumatized toddlers. My oldest is 5 and my youngest is 3. I just turned 30 *gasp* and I'm in school to get my nursing degree *crosses fingers for acceptance into program*. I'm a CNA/Med Tech. I've traveled the US when I was younger before settling mostly in Utah during my high-school years. (Youth really is wasted on the young, it's probably a good thing I can't redo my high school years though)
I grew up a tomboy, there were times when I was out shooting bb guns and gaming it up then there were times when my older sister pinned me down to pluck eyebrows etc. As time progressed I started to balance fashion with my tomboy traits. I don't claim a label nowadays besides scorpio. I like what I like though I'm guilty of a love affair with shoes and heels but I'm short so that just makes sense.
I'm not going for an autobiography right now so we'll just skip ahead.

I'm not a psychiatrist or a social worker but I am an expert in domestic violence. I'm a woman who was in an abusive relationship. For 6 years I didn't change until I realized that it was necessary to survive and be there for my boys. 6 years is a long time for some and for me, it was an eternity. By the end I had lost touch with what normal was. Nowadays, I joke and call it my idiot coma because I was so isolated from everything that coming out of that and getting my life back was a reawakening, a rebirth.

As I've started the healing process back in 2015 I went back to school and I ended up in a communications class where you guessed it, I had to write a speech. I started researching the data because I realized that I wanted to start speaking out and breaking the silence not just in one class but whenever I could because it's bad folks: 1 in 4 women have been in abusive relationship and 1 in 7 men in their lifetime. That gets to be a large number once a year rolls by; 12 million adults. In one year, 10 million children have witnessed abuse or been abused.
As I've worked through this process it was hard for me to forgive myself for staying for 6 years but I've met some women that were in their nightmare for 15-20 years.
 I have a new outlook on life. I am so grateful that I left when I did. I am so fortunate to be alive. I have my boys and I have my family. I am reborn from the emotional, sexual, physical, financial, and spiritual abuse I experienced. The According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, victims to go back to their abuser is 16 to 20 times, this is 85% of victims folks. Thankfully, I'm part of the 15% that never went back. Life is worth every trial and difficulty because when you set goals, you have direction, you have strength.
Now here comes the challenge: look around you and change something you don't like in your life, whether its the procrastination of loading the dishwasher or putting your shoes away when you just want to jump in your pajamas.
Changing yours situation and yourself is challenging. I'm speaking right now because of all of you. I promise that you know someone that is currently or was abused. I was able to end my own crazy love story by breaking the silence. I'm still breaking the silence today, it's my way of helping others and it's my request of you. Abuse thrives only in silence, shine a light on it, monsters are only scary in the dark.


Repeat after me: "I am strong!" Repeat this sentence to yourself as often as you can, no you're not silly.