There are two types of people. Those who deal with their problems and those who do not. I am, unfortunately, the second type. And what do you do with a problem when you don't want to deal with it? You bury it, deep inside, you put it in a can, put a lid tightly on it, and stack it on the shelf of your mind, hopefully never to think of again. Of course, you do. Nothing can ever be truly forgotten, if your mind is healthy. Its like going to your kitchen cabinet, opening the door and scanning the contents to decide what's for supper. Every so often you reach a point in your life when you have a trigger that makes you remember those events, but you scan on past that can, because you don't want to deal with what is inside of it. Like the great supper decision: "Green beans, corn, hominy, spinach (gag), nope, none of those sound good, so I will have a bacon sandwich instead." All these problems sit on the shelf of your memory, and once in awhile you scan across the shelf: "bad relationship, problems with my mother, that fight with my friend, my adoption (gag), nope, none of those need to be dealt with, so I'm just going to go bake cookies." But what happens when your shelf gets too full of cans? When those cans get old, start to bulge, and sooner or later the lids pop off and the contents start to ooze out? Then your shelf is covered with poison, rotten thoughts and emotions that start to cover the good cans, it drips down on to the shelf, on to the floor, and sooner or later, your whole being is just covered with toxins. And then you get a headache.......
I told a friend of mine several months ago that there were things in my life that I only dealt with, but not dealing with them. It seems like ever since then, slowly but surely I have had something trigger one situation after another until I have been forced to deal with them. I have learned that I have to talk about these things. I have to work through them. No matter if its a tiny mushroom size can, or a gallon of rutabaga size can, it has to be opened, and the contents dumped out and dealt with, so that I can make room on the shelf for better things. For boxes of chocolate, for bacon bits, for macaroni. For happiness, contentment....peace.
Verbal abuse has been the greatest part of my life, greatest as in biggest, not the most wonderful. It seems I have spent my life around people who take pleasure in putting others down. Or maybe they don't even realize they are doing it. Even as a little girl, crying about something, and being told to shut up because no one wanted to hear it. Always having the fact of my adoption pointed out. You aren't a "real Block". Being put down in school, for not dressing as well as the other girls, for being clumsy, for being a slow runner in gym, for talking and getting the whole class in trouble. I spent my whole life searching for love, because the one person who should have loved me never did. So I felt....unlovable. I got in relationships I never should have been in, because I was searching for love. I never felt loved within my family, not because I wasn't loved, but because I never felt like I fit in. Most of my struggles are internal. That old saying is true. I AM my own worst enemy. If I had to think of the one person who has verbally abused me the most, and caused me the most damage, it would have to be..... Beckie.
No one ever told me I was unloved, I told myself that they couldn't love me, because I wasn't theirs. Oh I had someone remind me with great regularity that I wasn't a true Block, that I had different blood in my veins, that I owed my parents for taking me in, that I was different. But I internalized those remarks, repeated them over and over in my head, until it became a distorted form of truth. I looked like no one in my family. There was no common DNA, so I didn't resemble anyone. I had dark hair like my dad, but no other features. I acted like no one in my family. I am quirky, at times down right weird. My family would pile their dinner all together on their plates, and here I am, nothing can touch, panicking if my corn juice drains in to my spaghetti. I am sorting my M&M's by color, because I cannot eat two different colors at the same time. I am a reader in a TV watching family. I chose Tonka trucks over Barbie, fishing over shopping, and would rather dig in the dirt than wear makeup. My mom wanted a girl, but I was never girlie. I wore dresses, but wore shorts under them. I have pictures from prom, with me in a ruffly pink formal. What doesn't show, is I was wearing sweat pants under it. I was a great disappointment as a daughter, because I was more like a third son.
There are so many issues I cannot really go in to on a public blog, because you never know if the ones who read it are reading it for something to talk about, or if they read it because they care, or can relate because they have "been there, done that, outgrew the t-shirt." I have been the topic of gossip at the cafe. A lot over the past year of life changes. Sadly, its the ones who are supposed to love me most that are at the center of the gossip, because I am finally stepping out of the shadow of the abuse and neglect of my life, and am starting to live for myself.
But the cans are still piled up on my shelf. And the lids are getting loose, popping off. There are things that must be dealt with, because dealing with it, is the only way its ever going to be cleaned up, cleared out and gotten rid of. The pantry shelves of my heart and mind are overloaded, and God is telling me its time that junk goes! You can only keep that stuff buried inside you until you reach the breaking point. Then you have three choices, you kill yourself, you have a mental breakdown, or you deal with it. I am at that intersection. I won't take that first road, so all that is left is the other two choices. My friends won't let me take that second road, so I guess all that is left is dealing with it. And that is a painful road to take. Full of potholes, deep ditches, low branches, thorn trees and the view is just awful. Now is when I find out just how strong I really am, and how good my friends really are.
I can go crazy, or I can be healed. I am checking in to long term counseling to try to deal with all of this junk. I know that God will be here with me as I take that journey because His word tells me that He will never leave me or forsake me. God made me strong. To handle all of the things in life that I have had to deal with, and He will keep me strong as I sort back through all of these things and put them to rest for good. I need to nail them on the cross and leave them there. I wish there was a way to pack it up without having to deal with it, but that isn't the way it works. So hang on Beckie..... its gonna be a bumpy ride....... but I know that at the end of the road, is peace, true happiness, and hopefully my friends will be there holding a bacon sandwich, heavy on the bacon.....
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