Today I feel defeated. I feel like a small fish in the big ocean. Everything I do fails and at the moment my head is going full speed with "pictures" from my past. I call them pictures because that is what it looks like in my head. Like a slideshow. I think these pictures are eating me alive. It feels like there's a hole where my heart is supposed to be.

When I close my eyes I see darkness. A dark room. In this room is a crib, and in that crib there I lay. The crib bars surround me. I am crying. I cry because I am hungry or because I'm wet or lonely or maybe because I want my mother. I cry for all of the millions of reasons that babies cry. Until my door opens and the sound of his boots walking closer and closer to my crib gives me something else to cry about.

When I was born darkness cast its shadows over me. The devil himself kissed me on the cheek. That devil was my father.

I do not know how old I was the night that my father left my room but I know I was younger then two. This is the first memory I have of my life. I also remember his smell and his hands and that when he left I felt broken, hurt,shattered, exposed and confused. I do not know what he did to me exactly. This I cannot see. Maybe I am not ready to see it. But I know this incident changed who I was supposed to become.

This makes me angry! That my father the one who was supposed to love and guide me through life is the one who could hurt me in this way. When I see other girls with their dads, girls who complain about how "daddy won't give me money" or "my dad is so annoying" It literally makes me sick to my stomach. They have no idea what they have. I grew up with a dad who had two faces. He was charming and handsome and loving and made me want to be his daughter. Then night came and he was evil. Thinking of nighttime daddy makes my skin crawl. He played his game well and everyone was fooled. I was just a tiny bug caught in his web of lies. Only now 40 years old can I start to realize that what he did was wrong and was not my fault.

How could he look at me a small child and see anything ******? Babies are warmness, smiles, laughs, and play. What kind of person would want to destroy that? I guess no one can ever answer these questions for me. I have to accept this. Anyways explanations will not solve or fix what has already been done. Nothing will. I am a victim of ******. THERE I SAID IT. Acknowledging it makes it real. But that does not heal me. I am a broken bird with tattered wings.

How do I fix my heart with these huge gaping holes in it? Do I pretend I am okay and patch them up with fake smiles and laughter? What if the patches fall off and I am left feeling defeated again? Do I spend thousands of dollars talking to therapists about all of my many problems hoping that 10 years later I will somehow be "normal" whatever that is? I will go with the first option for now. Pretending I'm fine and putting a smile on my face. If I smile I seem happy and then no one will know the pain inside me. Some know what happened but think I am "healed" so they do not ask questions and smiles do not lie right?

Sometimes I wish that someone would see past it and try to save me. Take me into their arms and let me cry and give me what I crave so much. Human contact. The right kind of contact that reassures and tells you your safe and loved. I feel alone and without purpose. What I know is today I feel defeated. Today I feel alone. Today I remember things that I did not remember yesterday. Today I have flashbacks where I feel like a little girl again. Where I feel like his hands are rolling over my body now. His eyes creeping up on me now. But it is not happening now. It is not real. This is what happens today. Tomorrow will be different. Tomorrow will be better.

I am trying to heal. I am trying to move on. This is a slow moving hard process.

I do not know what is happening to me right now… I have been having perverse and warped physical reactions to the flashbacks that are spilling out of me.  I feel like I am suffocating…I cannot swallow… I cannot breathe - I am too drained to fight it.

Still convinced I have to do it on my own I stumbled around the house. I walked around the kitchen, talking myself through each step, picking things up and telling myself what I was holding and seeing…this is my house, this is my kitchen, this is my desk, this is an envelope with my name on it…my phone bill – I am an adult, I am a wife, a mother, a friend…How crazy does that sound? I had to talk out loud to keep him away from hurting me again.

I do not remember what happened after that – a couple of hours later I woke up on my bedroom floor. A complete mess.  
What am I so scared of? Why can I not snap out of it???

It is all so warped and cruel. Experiences like ****** abuse and **** do more than just bump into us in the night…they critically wound us, sometimes fatally. Every single ounce of our being is ripped to shreds, our souls shattered. And we are left to pick up the pieces of what never should have been ~ angry…hurt…sad…hopeless…traumatized…full of shame and unable to trust anyone enough to talk about it.

Does anyone who has not been there really understand how traumatic and painful it is to hold all of this inside because of the fear of being told to ‘get over it’, or ‘shut up and behave’ or ‘It wouldn’t be so traumatic if you stayed in the present moment and out of the past’….so many secrets…so many years…so much energy it takes to keep it all in and ‘act normal’.  Does anyone understand how much it hurts to be told 'oops - sorry, it's after 10 now - you will be abandoned so make a different choice.'  It’s exhausting…But exhaustion feels like the better choice...rather than being abandoned.  And that's why I no longer reach out for help.  That's why she once again hides.  Because she was hurt time and time again...and now she's too scared.  Now, like then, 'in the face of expected abandonment...she makes a different choice.'

Maybe I am just too traumatized to ever fully trust anyone.  What if that is really my 'truth'?  Please do not let it continue tonight.  I am too tired...I am so scared and tired.

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for all that you represented in my life over the last year. The first day I met you on campus I knew that you were a woman of stature and confidence. You were to be admired! You carried yourself with such grace and you radiated buoyancy that I admired. You have been there, cheering me on, encouraging me to get help and reminding me of my value to others. Thank you for your encouragement, I will not forget it.

You were always there for me with a kind word and an available ear. So many times your words made me smile, and I felt cared for by your friendship. And although you were encouraging and kind, you were also sincere. I appreciate that so much, your honesty, and my feelings were never upset by your words because you were always gentle in your communication. I was never angry or hurt by anything you said…I took it in the spirit you intended, and although sometimes it was not easy to hear, it was always an opportunity to look within myself for an opportunity to grow. Thank you for your sincerity.

When I had lost not only my way, but also my compass, in this world, you have encouraged me to find answers and deal with issues.  And you also knew that for most of my life, love, acceptance and self- worth were all based on my ‘performance’. “If I do this…my mother will love me, my friends will love me”…and on and on and on. And it was a daunting task, keeping everything together for everyone, trying so hard to keep that mask on so no one would know what I came from, how tainted my past was…and the facade of who I pretended to be consumed me by the time I hit the age of 30. Any negative swerves in the road, anything that happened that I could not control, was quickly swept under the rug so the outward appearance of super-Nita remained perfect. Not many people could see beneath that mask, not many were allowed to see. I did, however, trust you to see beneath the shroud I presented to most people. I allowed you to see the ‘real’ Nita because you were compassionate and honorable.

But I keep trudging through the mud and the muck, even though many days I feel as though I am stuck in quick-sand. It is not easy, and I still revert back to my most treasured tools of self-destruction….old habits are hard to break. Once I ‘fall off the wagon’ it is difficult to climb back on again. The key for me is to proactively identify the triggers that precede the behavior so I can head them off at the pass. Meaning – have a plan in place and implement that plan BEFORE I find myself on the bathroom floor with blood pooling on the tile from the wounds I inflict on myself in an effort to feel the internal pain in a physical way. Some days are better than others…as you know, it is “one day at a time”.

There are days when I am okay, and on those days, I feel a renewed sense of hope, but there are days when I am not okay, and I struggle to find the will and the strength to continue. Although the internal wounds are still raw and bleeding, the external ones, the wounds I have inflicted upon myself, are fading.

We all have different strengths and I am thankful to have you in my life.

I am thankful for the friends who have stuck by me during this tumultuous time, those who are here to help hold my head above water when I lack the strength, and those who encourage me to keep running to a better life, to a life worth living, to a place of peace. It takes endurance and an unwavering faith, and I am lucky to have them. I know that someday I will be okay.