A child needs stability and security in order to construct their maps on how the world works
One day I walked out of my stable environment into a world that I knew nothing about. From my mother’s house into a hell. At that time, I didn’t know what hell was or where I was. I was in a place that I had no idea how to navigate.
Here I will give my rendition of a pretty normal progression. It may not be Dr. Psychologist’s rendition but it will lend understanding to this post.
8mths-6years—–they are stingy and the earth revolves around them. Sharing is hard.
6-8 years———-1st boy/girlfriend. They willingly share their candy
8-10 years——–Girls can’t play football. Boys can’t play with dolls. No more sharing.
10-14years——-I can interact with boys and girls even if there is a difference
There is and should be constant and consistent growth from birth.
Age 1. Walked 2. Potty-Trained 3. Understandably Talking 4. ABCs 5. Kindergarten
Age 6. 1st Church Recital 7. Won Spelling Bee 8. Made the Soccer Team
Age 9. Saved for Mother’s Day Bracelet 10. Welcomed Newborn Niece
Age 11. Whipped the Bully 12. Graduated Elementary 13. Made 1st String Soccer
Age 14. Made the Chess Team Too! 15. Broke Up With Boy/Girlfriend Boo Hoo Hoo
Age 16. 1st Job 17. Won State Championship 18. Graduated High School
There should be a protected period of innocence—Enoughabuse.org
Sexual abuse robs a child of childhood—anxiety.org
Good Self-Esteem grows from a safe and secure environment. Instead of protecting you, they molested you.—www.Goodtherapy.org/blog/Healing-From-Trauma-Does-Not-Hinge-On-Forgiveness.com
Sexual abuse gives you a lack of continuity about things. You’re 9 but you have been introduced to things 25-year-olds know. People learn to drive at age 16. I hadn’t yet learned to drive but I’ve had sex (molestations); something I couldn’t consent to. And that put a negative on my building and enforcing healthy boundaries.
Forgive?!!
I was still looking at Sesame Street, Electric Company and Zoom for God’s sake. And then I was manipulated to be on the road to alcohol and drug abuse. Anxieties and mistrust.
Forgive?!!
The furthest thing from my existence, which now (then) consisted of anger, bitterness, and fear…for 10-20 years. I was affected physically and psychologically. For you don’t get the chance to develop and mature in mind, body, and soul, or spiritually—for surely if this is happening God doesn’t love me.
We all know the parable of the king who forgave that enormous debt. And to the Christians who have figured out how much it is in today’s $s, I’ll just be hyperbolic.
A man owed a king $20 Trillion. He couldn’t pay it and his debt was forgiven. 20 Ts, Wow! Neither he nor his family were required to go to debtor’s prison. Boy did they have a BBQ when they went home. It was at the BBQ that the debtor Man 1 saw Man 2 who owed him $1000. (It actually says that when he got out, he went looking for the man who owed him the $1000). When Man 2 didn’t have it, he demanded that Man 2 be put into debtor’s prison. When the king heard what Man 1 did, he took the arrangement off the table and Man 1 was remanded to prison for his debts. And the king said that he was not to be set free until the whole debt was repaid.
The message here is for you to forgive people who have wronged you because God has forgiven you for things you have done. The message is also, you will not be free to freely live for your unforgiveness will keep you in a prison. Even if your sins were bigger than a $20 trillion mountain, God can and will forgive you. And you too should forgive others.
Forgive-Letting Go of The Past
Understanding
Moving On
Taking Care of Your Mental Health
Setting Yourself Free
I really like Roy T. Bennett when he writes, ‘The past is a place of reference, not residence’. But early on I messed that up too. I did make references to it but I still lived there. I was not reflecting. I was really stuck in that situation, in that moment, as though it happened yesterday.
Presently I can say that I was sexually abused, psychologically abused, and neglected. Now, I can truly reflect. Reflecting allows you to come to conclusions about things. But when you live, have residence, in that moment, when you are stuck in that situation, you can’t reflect in a healthful way because your objectivity is limited; you can’t see because everything is subjective. You were abused and now when you look in the mirror and you see the reflection of your eyes, you see your hurt. In your mind’s eye, you see the deeds—the sex, the beatings, things you wanted and desired and couldn’t have. You may be 20yo but in a way you are still 9 and you feel 9 due to the anger and the bitterness. Then subjectively, as you reflect on your life, you are all that you can see.
Forgive?
I was too angry and too bitter
Time and knowledge lent objectivity
When you look objectively, you begin to draw conclusions that make better sense than those based on anger and bitterness, which has no healing component. And when the past is your present there is not much growth…you see the same things all the time. It’s a bleak blah.
The rest of Roy T Bennett’s writing is ‘the past is a place of learning, not living.’
As I began to grow up and live my life and make my own decisions, one of my questions were, “how could people do such a thing?” That I would never subject my children to want and neglect. I couldn’t change what happened to me but I could protect them and give them hope.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that one day I was 25yo and I had this enormous epiphany when a light from heaven beamed down and then I was miraculously whole. No, time and children lent objectivity. Rather, the distance from subjectivity to objectivity increases with time and knowledge. You begin to move further and further away from ‘I’m the only person this ever happened to.’ That in this world, it also happened to someone that was 5yo…and younger. You come to learn that it’s a worldwide phenomenon. You think things such as, ‘what percentage of women in prison were actually abused as children?’ And people can mess with you and your life and get off with a plea agreement. And I don’t mean to sound negative but a thought is, ‘God could forgive your abuser and not you.’
Now it’s time to feed and clothe my own children. And you move forward a little at a time. You are 20, 23, 27, and 31yo as you begin to drop your chains and imprisonment. As you begin to look forward to a better ending. As you begin to understand it backwards but live it forward. As you begin to see how far you’ve come and embody the change.
With your face no longer attached to the mirror of just that part of your life, you now have eyes that can see the journey you’ve travelled as well as where you can go. This making peace with your past does have positive effect on the future. And anyone can start over and make a new beginning for themselves.
Roberto Assagiola writes:
Without forgiveness, life is governed by an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation
I say enjoy your endless cycle of replenishment.
There does come times in life when we ‘Shed Our Skin’ if you will. We all have replenishment properties. In under a minute, your body makes over 2 million red blood cells. The lining of your lungs reproduces itself about every 8 days. Under your top layer of skin are other layers (18-23), with other layers awaiting renewal, or at the very least, awaiting a chance to surface so as to die and be swept away every 10-30 days.
Cerebral neurons last 80+ years. We also have memory cells that hang around for about 60 years. They hang around because they remember certain pathogens that tried to attack you in the past. So, they hang around, remember and kill them. That is their job. To make sure past diseases, viruses, and pathogens don’t do what they did or tried to do in the past. And like memory cells, we have the obligation to make sure certain things don’t happen to us or our children. We also owe it to ourselves to watch and observe the renewal of things around us.
Just a thought. Brain memorization doesn’t renew, or once the brain cells you have die and that’s it. Excuse me Drs. It has been shown that there is a certain amount of renewal. But for the most part we work with neurons that last 80+ years. You remember from long ago and yesterday. There are many things that you won’t forget.
The lining of the large and small intestine renews every 3-5 days. This is not an option; it is how we are wired. To renew and not hang on to stuff…everything it seems accept the cerebral neurons.
You know how when a cartoon character dies and they show the spirit actually leave the body. I think we have spiritual constipation and won’t let our spiritual colon empty and renew although our spiritual brain sends all kind of signals to release. When we don’t renew, when we don’t spiritually empty, we remain a victim of constipation, a victim of unforgiveness. We make it optional, when we should just release.
Forgiveness—-Letting Go of the Past
Understanding
Moving On
Taking Care of Your Mental Health
Setting Yourself Free
Nice gifts for yourself. Nice tools to live with. Tools that will help you end that (endless) cycle of resentment and retaliation. Of Loop Thinking. Of Prison. Of holding a dead body called the past. Of holding a dying spirit called the future. Of not living up to your fuller and fullest potentials because that dead body and dying spirit can get heavy…stinky…ugly.
Emotional Baggage—carrying all the disappointments, wrongs, and trauma of the past around in one big heavy load. Baby, shed that skin. Renew. Even the oceans of the world flush themselves. Let Go.
And remember, the present is enough for today. Don’t mess up the gift of today by focusing on yesterday’s garbage. Put it in the refuse pile so it can be recycled into a chair, yeah, a massage chair. Refer to it but don’t live there. Look forward to when it is only reference material and not your blueprint for the day.