Recently someone totally unexpected from my past popped up in my life. A previous friendship from a previous lifetime. With her came all the gory details of a very unhappy time in my life. Not only was this person judgmental, but also very hurtful to me, my husband and my poor bewildered children. This friendship was being totally oblivious and insensitive to my life here and now, never thinking how it would affect what I have worked so hard to achieve. It happened in an instant, a slip of a tongue, a sight, a smell, but this time it was the smell of the rain.
People often judge one by ones past actions. Unfortunately she was in my shoes at the time, however subtly choosing the side of my abuser. This person has no appreciation or comprehension of my ability to cope under the circumstances. She has judged me the hardest, leaving me no compromise, because somehow I had failed. I was told back then that it was my fault, that simply by being me I had transgressed. I questioned myself, believing I had to be different somehow. In hindsight I was different, I was stronger than them. I was able to cope when they weren't. Only cowards abuse other people after all.
Wounds like these have an ugly way of showing up, of leaving one open exposed and bleeding, of dividing one. Of silencing you just when your confidence returns, because you can once again hear your voice. Am I destined never to speak? Never to have a voice? It is ironic that I work for an organization called Voice now, when most of my life I felt unable to speak or express any form of emotion, to have no Voice.
I am determined to work through these wrongs to make them right again. To change the cycle and the ugly pattern of these atrocities. I often wonder how to get rid of these ugly raw scars, just as I was often left to wonder the age old question of 'why me' when I was young. Perhaps it is time to accept that perhaps that is who I am and will be. To find a way of reconciling the pain. Of using the experience positively. To once and for all, deal with it for my own sake.
People often judge one by ones past actions. Unfortunately she was in my shoes at the time, however subtly choosing the side of my abuser. This person has no appreciation or comprehension of my ability to cope under the circumstances. She has judged me the hardest, leaving me no compromise, because somehow I had failed. I was told back then that it was my fault, that simply by being me I had transgressed. I questioned myself, believing I had to be different somehow. In hindsight I was different, I was stronger than them. I was able to cope when they weren't. Only cowards abuse other people after all.
Wounds like these have an ugly way of showing up, of leaving one open exposed and bleeding, of dividing one. Of silencing you just when your confidence returns, because you can once again hear your voice. Am I destined never to speak? Never to have a voice? It is ironic that I work for an organization called Voice now, when most of my life I felt unable to speak or express any form of emotion, to have no Voice.
I am determined to work through these wrongs to make them right again. To change the cycle and the ugly pattern of these atrocities. I often wonder how to get rid of these ugly raw scars, just as I was often left to wonder the age old question of 'why me' when I was young. Perhaps it is time to accept that perhaps that is who I am and will be. To find a way of reconciling the pain. Of using the experience positively. To once and for all, deal with it for my own sake.
