I feel invisible. It always seems to go that I either share myself as this broken damaged emotional mess or as the strong competent "I survived that shit" leader. Both are me. Neither are the whole truth. I want to scream all the horrid truths that I've internalized about myself to the world. I want to carve them into my body as an ever present reminder. I wonder if that urge will ever go away. It's been 3 years and 364 days since I last self-injured. And right now I miss it, crave the false release it will give me. I crave the false comfort it offers and the lies that I can wrap myself in to numb my heart from the depth of my pain.
I hold fast to the belief that if people really knew me they'd run for the hills. I feel, no I know that I'm branded by all the abuses done to me, convinced that everything about me screams "victim" and "easy target". It's all lies, but they are lies that at least part of my heart still believes, still holds onto and still wraps around herself as a false sense of security.
Meredith Andrews does a song, Pieces, and the first verse feels like where I'm at tonight:
It's a complex puzzle you call your lifeI am so sick of the lies I believe. It's hard to see them as lies. It was true. I was alone. I was abused by those who were meant to protect and love me. That abuse was swept under the rug and I was told that I needed to be a better daughter. Called out on being bitter and rebellious. No shit Sherlock. That's kind of what happens when I come to you for help and all you can offer is that I need to forgive him. Then you sent me back there. Time and again. God I'm angry.
It's an uphill climb, it's a constant fight
And it wears you down
Feeling like you're alone, like you don't belong
And you won't be loved if you don't measure up
And you wear your scars
Like they're who you are
How do you learn to belong anywhere, to anyone when you're raised cut off from the world? No media, no unapproved friends, and every move in tightly controlled. I only belonged when I fit someone else's labels and niche that they had carved out for me. Even now in my marriage I'm only starting to carve my own niche, having given up on being who my in-laws needed me to be, and who my husband thought I should be.
It's only been in the last year that I've started to be loved for me. It's taken therapy and hard work. It's taken letting people see me. It's taken my husband starting recovery for himself and his crap. And yet the flip side is that for years I've known somehow, somewhere buried deep down that God doesn't give a shit about my trying to measure up. He loves me - wildly. It's hard to hold onto that. The truth is getting stronger. I tend to lose sight of it when I start the next round of healing and that's where I am right now. I know the way God loves me is like this whirling crazy dance full of colours - and I'm not connected to it. It's held separate so that I can feel the pain that needs to come out. It feels like walking back to the beginning.
And my scars...yeah I wear them like they still get to define me. I spent 12 years cutting and the last 4 staring at my scars as they slowly fade to white lines. It's not just those scars though, all the invisible scars define me even more. Yet I know that God has scars too, and His scars, His scars mean that I'm Beloved.
These are some of the words that I'm biting back, that I've locked away, to only allow to spill out when I'm too tired to filter anymore.
Rest in who He is, He knows how to make your pieces fit - Meredith Andrews, Pieces
Thanks. :)
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