"When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person that walked in.
That's what the storm is all about"
-Haruki Murakami
So, I took a break - a very long break. Heartbroken by my last blog post before signing off, Secrets, I slipped into a long period of depression and stupidity, for lack of a better word. My preacher left to start a new church and I was feeling very alone for a long time. Once I stepped out of this haze of anger, I tried to withdraw from everything I was loving. Even being surrounded and loved by people around me wasn't enough to bring me back completely.
I was hurt
I was confused
And I just wanted to run away.
So, I'm ready to talk about what happened, what hurt me so much that I shut out the world for so long, my heartbreak from my Secret post. It's a long story, and even though it was a year ago, it still is fresh on my mind. I was originally inspired to post my first (well second) post after I was told about a family member that had been sexually assaulted. It took me back to my childhood, hiding under my covers, not sleeping because I knew soon my father would be in the room. I was hurting for this family member and wanted to share with him my story. But, I don't want to get into the details. The real story is that I found my half sister, the one that is 9 months older than me and I met a long time ago. We have the same father, the one who sexually abused me. The first and only time I met her, she was crying hysterically. She was crying so much that we really weren't able to talk much but I remember making out a few of the things she was saying. She was crying asking why he was such a good father to me when he wasn't there for her. It always bothered me but after she left, we just didn't talk again. Well, along comes Facebook and getting in touch with family members. I found her by asking around and sent her an email. I was so excited to see that she had replied and had asked me to send her an email to her personal email. So we sent a few messages back and forth for a bit and one day she asked me why I emailed her to begin with. I told her about how it always bothered me that she thought our father was so good to me but was not good with her and so I told her my story and told her that I went through the same thing she did...and that's when my world fell apart. She called me a liar, questioned how I could let something like that go on for so long. Asked why we didn't have him arrested. I found myself defending myself to her, doubting my own memories and worst of all, being heartbroken that it was just me and not her.
He never did the things to her that he did to me.
He loved her like a father should love his daughter
He paid for her to go to college
He has a good relationship with her now and it devastated me.
Why? Because it left me feeling like something was wrong with me, like I did something as an 8-9 year old to somehow lead him to do the things he did. I felt dirty again and scared. When she asked me why I would tell her something like that, why I would try to ruin their relationship, it hurt. I remembered the look of pain on her face when we first met and I was just trying to comfort her by letting her know that he was not a good father to me either, assuming he had done the same to her. I thought that maybe she was still hurting but instead, it left me feeling like trash. I was the child that he lusted after. It wasn't in his nature, it was just me, something i did to make him behave that way.
So I wanted to shutdown again. I took a break from the world and found in that year of trying to shut the door and check out, I was surrounded by people trying to break that door in. I found friendships that have come to mean the world to me. I found comfort in being surrounded by people instead of being alone in my thoughts. My kids, through all my internal fighting, were there being the sweetest they could be. I know my daughter could see that I was fighting something and she was there to tell me it was ok. I don't think I could love my kids more than I do right now. I think if it wasn't for those people who stuck around no matter how hard i tried to push them out, that I wouldn't be here writing again - so thankful!
