Unbridled Happiness

Full of joy. Complete. Happy.

These words describe me tonight. What a great week this has been. This time last week I was offered a job full time where I’m contracting now. So very thankful for this chance.

I’m happy tonight. Not just a little bit but a whole lot. In the next few months I’m moving to a new place and getting essentially a fresh start. I’m beyond thankful if that’s possible for those who are helping me with this move.

I’m happy that my big furry dog just planted himself beside me and is desperately trying to get my attention away from blogging. I know a lot of people love their dogs. This dog is special.

The day I went to see him to see if I was gonna adopt him I fell in love. It was mutual. Since then he has helped me feel safe, open my heart up to love again and comforts me when I’m anxious or sad.

I’m so thankful tonight to have this full time job starting oct. 1st. Full benefits and insurance. I’ve bee without for so long and it will be good to take care of my health again.

I feel like I’ve had some sort of breakthrough lately. God has been working in my heart and is continuing to change me from the inside out. He’s used my church, my friends and my family in powerful ways.

Tonight I feel free from worry; my anxiety is gone. There remains joy.

Truly God is good.

Russian Roulette with a Loaded Gun

When you deal with someone who is emotionally abusive, it’s like they say “hey, let’s play Russian roulette” but then proceeds to hand you a fully loaded gun.

Their desire is to hurt, to kill – in my case it was not physically kill – but the intent was and is to hurt me deeply, over and over again. His intent is to kill my spirit.

It does not compute in my mind, it never will. I understand it and have studied and lived through abuse but I will never fully “get” it. It is indescribable and well, nuts.

When a manipulating, controlling abuser gets you frustrated he has won. I let a situation and person frustrate me tonight and I responded in frustration and let him know I was angry. Although I felt vindicated for about 1/10th of a second, I also knew that I had lost. By reacting to him I fed his madness.

So I develop a plan to avoid this situation with him by planning and out smarting him.

This is my reality. Dealing with it stinks but it just IS. He probably won’t ever change and I know this but I can learn to outwit and outsmart him.

Tonight I lay here listening to worship music because I am not going to let my hurt or anger take on a life of its own. You see, if I do that then the Enemy and this person wins.

Slingshot to a different time

Laying here trying to wrap my head around some things that have happened in my world lately. If you have lived through any type of abuse, such as emotional abuse, when I talk about times when things happen that literally slingshot you back to another time and place you will understand.

It can be some unkind of hateful thing from someone you care about and all the sudden you are struggling to keep from disassociating. Your mind and body want to flee the situation. You desperately wish you could just scream or just not talk for about a week or both!

A parent who abuses emotionally whether it is to his or her spouse will inevitably teach these “skills” to his or her children whether the kids know it is happening or not. Often the kids don’t know it is happening. Their world gets slowly turned upside down until they are no longer who they once were. What is normal to them is warped but it’s happened to them so slowly they don’t even know it. I know. It happened to me as an adult.

I have been free from these feelings for a couple of years until just recently when I started writing about abuse openly. This time around I know what’s happening to the parties involved and can prepare myself better. It’s still hard though. I want to scream and lay it all out for my kids but they are not ready yet.

My heart hurts as I struggle to stay present, to keep my mind from temporarily going on vacation. I am tempted to check out mentally (stick my head in the sand) but I will not. You see if the abuser gets you to that point they have won. And I’m not defeated. My God is bigger than any of my adversaries. And ultimately He will sit in judgement and that frees me from doing that.