Hope (Photo credit: bitzcelt)
So many of us don’t get much to speak of as a chance at life until we are older. Raped with penetration by age five and following, traded for favors, fear and more fear, isolated, escaping from one to other places of objectification. We don’t like closets. We avoid reminders but since there is no place we don’t remember our traumas, we are, we know, not hidden well enough.
And then one day, Hope gets through the diseased surface of our primitive defense and delivers her message. The message comes again, as Hope is unchangingly drawn to us. Hope has been here before, but this time for what ever reason, it might be our age, finally seventeen or twenty-eight or fifty-four, it might be a nosey teacher or a fatal car crash involving one of our victimizers or our home is moved, but this time that Hope comes, we have the fortune of being pierced through.
When there are holes, Light can enter. When Light enters, Light takes chase to darkness and then, served on a moment-gilded-platter, we have it.
This may not be your story, but is for enough. Even one, right? Even one matters. Things really are that sick in more “homes,” represented by the normally garbed, disguised at school, work, church, stores and behind their computer screens. We are all invariably fooled. All of us respond to these disguises with what is available from our biopsychosocial-selves. We respond by naming them consciously and unconsciously with a name that serves the needs of our biopsychosocial-self. We could say that the disguises are designed both by them and us. It is what it is. We are all fools, this way by different degrees.
But back to those pierced by Hope. Being a friend to yourself may not occur to us for what seems forever along the line that Time determinably follows in our dimension. Being a friend to Me finds us now where light enters. Hope and Light can have their way on our damaged selves.
Hope ports to all new beginnings. The judgment of what makes living, through such distances, worth it is not for anyone but the individual and God. However our opinion, served from our biopsychosocial selves is that life is worth living even in the distance before Hope pierces us through. See Post, Your Pain is Not Special. It Is Normal., to read more on this.
We who have gotten friendly with Me, want Life despite the freakishly terrible. Either we are masochistic to continue through such horrors, to continue living, or it is true. What comes with hope, with being a Friend to Yourself, with Love, when experienced cannot be qualified or quantified other than to say, that Love wins.
Questions: Do you believe Love wins? If not, why? What do you say about being a friend to yourself to those who are in the midst of being victimized? Please tell us your story.
Self-Care Tip: Want Life despite the freakishly terrible. It’s true. It’s that worth it. Be a friend to yourself.
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- Manifesto, by Sana Johnson-Quijada MD (friendtoyourself.com)
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Nice Work. this is encouraging.
thanks char.
“…that the disguises are designed both by them and us ”
“Hope and Light can have their way on our damaged selves.”
I have had to learn to cut free of my damaged self. Not to feel “less than” because of what may have been imposed or inflicted. They hurt us once and we must not allow that to make us feel diminished. If that is how will live we allow them to hurt us again and again . We are invariably products of our past but we can control and design what we become. There are some bridges that need to be burned.
torch them and i’ll play the dancing music on my radio. we’ll invite whoever u want.
i’m encouraged by your story. thank u for connecting us w the deliberate action of moving with better choices. keep on
I keep thinking that I’ve made it through all the horror of the “feakishly terrible” and I’m fine…and then here it is in front of me and my throat has tightened up and so has my chest and it’s hard to breathe. It never ends. I buried it for 52 years…well, I thought I had. My husband knew something wasn’t right but didn’t bring it up until I did…and I didn’t bring it up until after my father died, and, then, bringing it up was the beginning of a total nervous breakdown.
Did love make it better? When? My husband’s love and acceptance all those years when I was burying everything that made me remember (so deep that I didn’t even know what I was burying!) certainly helped. His love absolutely helped during the years when I was in and out of hospitals and practically comatose on medications. My kids’ love helped, too, although they really didn’t know much of the story because I refused to let them know. Love from others outside of the family? Ha. The church people were afraid of me (and actually walked across pews to keep from talking to me), my friends (except for two, God bless them) suddenly were too busy. Physicians and therapists? They tried. I’m not sure I would have survived without my therapist.
The only love that has helped was the one I learned, through friendtoyourself, to give to myself. And, no, I’m not selling this site. I’m being honest about how much learning to love myself has meant in my healing process. But, then again, here I sit trying to breathe….
And, yes, I’ve tried to help others with love, but, they, like all of us, need to learn to love (and forgive!! as ridiculous as that sounds) themselves and only they can do that. I haven’t figured out how to help them help themselves, but, then again, I’m still working on me.
I have to add, though, that I am convinced that I survived the first 52 years of my life and the following 20 because of God’s love. I wondered a lot of the time, why God was letting it all happen, but I can’t not believe that God was there keeping me going in the worst of the worst as well as in the best of the best times.
thank u nance. i am ever grateful for u. i know what it feels like to think that people r afraid of me. i’m sure other readers do too and it stinks. God’s luv is stronger than that junk too. thank u so much for telling us this bit of your story. keep talking, friend.
Love wins, all right – but it depends which race you’re in. It’s not necessarily the way to recognition or status or success, but it’s a fast-track route to happiness 🙂 Even without hope there are moments when the human capacity to reach out triumphs.
hi kate! thx for that. …moments when the human capacity to reach out triumphs – i hope to grow in this way. do u have any stories on this to tell, master word-smith?
Sana, this is a beautiful post…very poignant and true. Love is important, but without hope, is it enough? That inner drive and hope for a better future is so essential and reading posts like this certainly helps in the hope department…
hello friend! i luv your profile shot cuz that’s what it feels like when u stop by. thx for the comment. u have so much experience in this. if u want to shed light, we’d luv to hear a story or two
🙂