Still Paying the Price

It's been almost three years since I've posted on this blog.  I haven't forgotten anything, but I just couldn't write about things.  Trying to figure out how to make this blog do what I orignally intended for it to do is complicated.  I'm too much of a chicken to just put it all out there.  I've lost too many friends in too many places and quite a few of those losses were because of my past abuse.

We are once again in a new state, a new church and trying to see where we fit, or if we do fit.  As long as I manage to blend, I know we'll be okay.  But what about the dark times?  They always return and then I really don't want to be alone.  I want comfort, but that's the point where I am rejected or become someones project.  Is there a balance?  Does anyone besides me know how to be a friend to someone who is hurting without turning them into a project?

That sounds a bit arrogant, but I haven't seen people who have been able to be a friend to those who have been sexually abused without turning them into a project or outright rejecting them.  I don't want to be hurt like that again.  The abuse was a long time ago, but I'm still paying the price.  I'm the one with the memories that intrude at the wrong times.  (I'd like to know when the right time is and then maybe I can train my brain and body to save it for times I can handle it and am expecting it.)  I'm the one with the shaking and sweating hands.  I'm the one who works really hard to take hugs and pats from people at church, especially men, without panicing and having to hide in the bathroom.  I'm the one with the flashbacks.  I'm the one who thinks about what happened to me when sermons or songs touch on tragedy or God's love and care.  When forgiveness is discussed I am back in the hallway trying to know that I'm not really there again.  When someone keeps asking how can they pray for me I am terrified.  This is a person who is becoming a friend and all I can think of is how much it will hurt when they don't talk to me anymore and avoid me at church because I fully and truthfully told them how they can pray for me.  I want to say.  "Pray that the darkness doesn't get too dark, pray that I can stop being afraid, pray that I can be myself without losing friends or becoming a project, pray that the baptist tapes will be banished, pray that PTSD won't keep returning, pray that he will be caught and punished, pray for justice, pray for complete healing and hope that it is possible, pray that the memories won't come unbidden especially when I'm with my husband or in church, pray that the thoughts of suicide will never return, pray for me to be able to love God fully."
I don't say any of these things.  How can I?  The risk is too great.

Yes, I am still paying the price.

Almost wish I wished I was dependent on God

I'm back again with counselling. I think I will last this one out. I'm journaling and giving copies of the pages to him. We talked some about being dependent on God. And some on being able to "meltdown" in a safe place. I don't like that. Is there ever a place that safe?


"redemptive meltdown" How is it redemptive? How does losing control help? How do you know God is inviting you to deepen your dependency on Him? and how do you do that?
I'd like to ask why you would want to be more dependent on God, in general I know we all should be, but I personally just don't want to be. I almost want to want to be dependent on God, but I'm afraid to get the rug pulled out from under me again in order for me to run to God.

So if I just stand my distance from God relationally, then maybe nothing will happen. When I do move towards God then things usually fall apart and then I get even closer to God. The common thread is always this: I move towards God and all hell breaks loose; I cling to him until things have calmed down and then I slowly back away from the Rock that the ocean has beat me against and decide that I'm only going to go wading--no more swimming out towards the Rock.

There is something seriously wrong with how I relate to God, but I am afraid to try to fix it.

Numb Again

I'm not going to see Dr A again. At least I don't think so. I'm going to see someone else. I will try to call tomorrow. I'm tired of sinking back into where I was. I don't know how to get out of it. I can't seem to get it together. I am more organized now, but more of a mess on the inside. I feel numb again and can't snap out of it. I'm afraid that I will never make it to prosecution of JM. It's all I can do to stay busy and forget. When I slow down, I just get depressed or even more often just hollow. I'm not really here, but I don't know how to get here and live. I try to fake it and am "sick" to cover days when I just am too worn out to continue the charade.

I am going to Florida with a friend later this month. She is not a friend to be quiet with, we will be busy and noisy and talk a lot even about serious things, but not about the emptiness of being trapped behind walls; we will have fun and it will take the edge off, but the numbness of existence will return to me afterward.

I am so tired.

A couple of years ago I was on my way out of the numbness and was learning to lean on God. Not doing so good now. I'm all out of friends. Ones that I have left or call friends are either ones that I don't want to risk losing by being too transparent or are ones that I don't trust that much anyway. I have been so often rejected in the last 2 years that I am extremely terrified of letting anyone else that close again. I guess people just can't handle my daily type troubles let alone the hauntings of the past. I'm safer cocooned behind my walls wrapped in the numbness of isolation, but I know it's not right. For now I can do nothing else. God help me.

Someone asked me how I knew I was a Christian

Someone asked me the other day if I was a Christian. (Neither one of us was being ugly) I told him I was and he asked me to tell him how I knew. I couldn't. I don't have the words to explain it except in an arminian/semi-pelagian way. I do know I'm a Christian. But I didn't do anything, so I don't know how to explain it. It started with the Bible church and the preaching I heard there was truth. I was intrigued by the stark contrast of this preaching and any other I'd ever heard.

This is the article that started it all. My four year old was bringing home Sunday School papers that were very different than any I'd seen before. They weren't just cute little pictures to color and a nice moral story about a perfect family with children who are wonderful little soulwinners. I wanted to know more about the place that made these Sunday school lessons. What was so different?
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Articles/ByTopic/105/1487_What_We_Believe_About_the_Five_Points_of_Calvinism/

So I looked up the website that was in extremely small print at the bottom of my childs paper. I had never read anything about the five points of Calvinism before. Back in high school in Bible class I had to know what T.U.L.I.P. was. We studied it in the sense that we took notes on what our teacher was saying, but there was never any true study. I was taught that Calvinism was heresy. So there I was reading this article, trying not to listen to a lifetime of conditioning that was telling me this was heresy and dangerous doctrine.

I had LOTS of questions. So I hit the internet. I also wore through everyone I could see face to face. I was warned about the dangers of looking for answers on the web, but at the same time no one had enough time, in real time, to spend answering questions. I'm not saying they didn't take time to answer questions, but my questions never stopped. I could talk for an hour and just be getting started. I sent lots of emails with questions about what I was reading or something from the sermon. I pulled in a lot of people to ask questions of. I couldn't get enough. I read lots of books, good ones like: How Can I Be Sure I'm a Christian?: What the Bible Says About Assurance of Salvation; The Almost Christian Discovered; A Treatise on Regeneration; Knowing God and several others.

I spent six months, mostly on the Puritan Board, reading and then later asking questions. Many on that board spent a lot of time answering my questions and were so kind. I'll never forget it. I don't know when I slept. God was drawing me. It was like a crash course in knowing God. I was saved in the first week of Nov 03, but I don't know how to explain it. But I know I'm a Christian. I know I belong to God. I hope to have the words for it someday. I know it was God, not me.