Finding Peace

If there was one thing that I could change from my past I would have to say nothing at all. Yes, I was kept against my will and used as a toy, my self-worth and my desire/will for a life of my own was taken away, yet I can honestly sit here right now and say I have no regrets. This part of my life allowed me to be intelligent. Not in the “I can do math way” because let’s face it, me and math will never go together. This is a deeper intelligence that you can only get from living life. I use the word intelligence because that’s what my therapist reports all say “intelligent”. I am more than that though, the pain behind my eyes that I spoke of earlier is because my eyes tend to me all seeing. I don’t look at a person and see the outside, I see the secrets they work so hard to hide. 

Maybe calling me intelligent isn’t the best of words because so many people assume it means “book smart”. I am literate. I can read and write and even throw in a big word or two when I am in the mood. I never expected that my experiences as a victim would help people to comprehend or enhance their own lives, especially the non-victims. They don’t tend to want to understand so when I find someone who is crying out for help but doesn’t know what they need I feel like I have done well. My past gives me a purpose I never knew I would have. Wearing my heart on my sleeve and the truth on my tongue has caused several people to not want to talk with me, but more importantly, it has allowed others to open up to me and share their stories of abuse, many times for the very first time. How grateful I am to be given such precious insight into a persons’ life. 

Of course I know this isn’t the best way to meet people, get to know them etc; but when I break down that wall that they have had up for so many years and I get to the raw truth, things begin to fall into place. I can suddenly understand their need for control, I can understand why they have this hard exterior built up around a broken emotional one. These are all coping mechanisms for things that occurred years, often decades ago.

Am I going to be able to save the world? NO! However, if I encourage just one more person to spill their guts I will know that I my life has meaning, which honestly, helps me more than it does these people, or at worse it helps us both equally. Realizing that you aren’t the only one experiencing these bombarding emotions is sad, yet healing. You suddenly know you are no longer alone in a world where you had been stripped and vulnerable. It gives you back a truth you hadn’t realized you needed in order to move on.

Have I found any healing? Probably, but I don’t recognize it as that. Instead I see it as a shift in pain. Some days are better than others because the pain isn’t in my way hindering me, but most days my pain is at the front of my mind blocking anything good from coming through. Maybe one day I will find that peace within myself, until then I will continue this journey with the people who are around me and hopefully one day what I have lost, I will find. 

Quotes from the movie “Secretary”. I feel like E. Edward Grey’s description of WHY Lee cuts herself is very much explanatory of the reasons behind the wounds. Finally, when Lee describes how she showed him each scar and knew exactly where each had come from that is also very truthful. I can look at each scar and remember when and why. Like a timeline of the pain I have dealt with throughout my life.

E. Edward Grey: Why do you cut yourself, Lee?
Lee: I don't know.
E. Edward Grey: Is it that sometimes the pain inside has to come to the surface, and when you see evidence of the pain inside you finally know you're really here? Then, when you watch the wound heal, it's comforting... isn't it?
Lee: I... That's a way to put it.

Lee: Each cut, each scar, each burn, a different mood or time. I told him what the first one was, told him where the second one came from. I remembered them all. And for the first time in my life I felt beautiful. Finally part of the earth. I touched the soil and he loved me back.