
photo by son, Cory
Walking the meadow through snow then muddy patches where my boots suck in making splashes, my thoughts ponder this new journey where the possibility of liking myself becomes reality. A life of self-hate makes this a journey that may never have happened.
When attacked sexually by loved ones as a child, a child takes it upon herself and feels bad, dirty and disgusting. When trying to tell, the typical responses cause her to take it more inward where it creeps and grows.
The childhood monsters become her monsters. The monsters are intrepid in their dis-ease constantly haranguing her, banging with clubs in every moment and every instance, ‘it’s your fault, this argument is because of you, this person looked at you with malice (and probably they didn’t but had something on their mind), and on it goes.
There is no end to it for self-hate is all she knows. She cannot remember being a free child who laughs, runs, and plays with abandon. For every negative thing it is because she was born.
The medical attention and intervention required for the traumas occurring were never provided. The family takes the cowardly path and blames her, if not outright, then subtly so that she can never untangle the wiring.
The damage becomes permanent and chronic affecting every system in her body. Her life will be shortened dramatically because of it. If not taken by her own hand, then the damage done will take her life. As she ages she learns the toll of what took place. Despite it all a tiny spark of hope whispers, ‘it is not your fault.’ Her courage rises and she fights.
She fights for life and she shall have it. She shall find peace within herself. The road is hard. How can she accomplish this if being inside herself has not occurred since the age of eight?
Frightened to be where the monsters live deep down inside her, she lives elsewhere, a place to go besides the present moment. And she still goes there when life gets scary as it always does.
She learns to count breaths and it may be the first time she resided in her body and felt safe. Moments of the parts coming together as a whole stretched longer and she liked it. Yet there was still the trepidation of being inside herself, a stranger to own self, and always having hated what was there. But it had never really been explored.
The steps inward took decades, feeling safe inside with all the parts- physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental. Then accepting all that was found, especially the humanness where mistakes have been made, jealousies and all the other human emotions that are not looked highly on, they are there too.
Accepting all that makes her human occurs and with it great expansion into self with a depth of life that makes living worthwhile. Then the process begins of discovering that what is there isn’t all ‘bad.’
There is much good. And she begins to give herself permission to explore, and to like what she finds. She feels warmth for herself for the very first time, the warmth she had been craving her whole life. It had been there all along, but she had to be in there to find it.

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