Robbed of Personal Power - Beyond Your Story

I talk a lot about your story up until now and how you should not let it define you.

We all have had people in our past who have taken away our personal power. It might have been parents, kids at school that made fun of us or people who have abused us in some way.

In the words of The Bloggess, depression lies!

 I've been right in all these places. I've been told I was fat, even though I was beautiful. There was a man who told me that he loved me, then choked me until I blacked out. There was a man who, when he saw me walking around the college campus without him, told me that I was fat and that he was embarrassed to call me his girlfriend to his coworkers. Girls, so insecure with themselves while in my presence, that they systematically tore at my self esteem over years until by age 17, I didn't think that I was worthy of even drawing breath, anymore.

A picture of me at 17 - suicidal and believing I was horribly fat, ugly
and not worthy of drawing breath, anymore.

There are so many things that float around in our heads from these situations in our lives. They come back to us as we are driving down the road. They replay to us as phantasms behind our closed eyelids in the shower or before we drift off to sleep. These are horrible stories that we repeat in our heads and they hold us back in our lives.

"Oh, I can't do that because my family was . . . "

"I don't deserve to be happy because I'm too fat, too intimidating with my intelligence, too ugly, too . . . " any number of things.

All of these things that you tell yourself in your head, no matter who told you that? They were wrong.

A conversation my local grocery store with a cashier led me to make the statement, "I don't know why people are so mean to each other."

In my younger years, I was (to borrow a phrase from TRAPT) "a little piece of heaven raising hell." I was beautiful. With a dancers' build and modeling contracts, I still didn't think I was worth a damn. And because I let my past define me, I was angry. So angry. I watched this TED talk, recently, and I really know how this woman felt.

For years, I was so hurt. It started with my heart being broken by a good friend / high school romance and it built from there. But I never really allowed myself to feel the pain from that betrayal. I didn't see the outside influences on him. His parents, etc. Only my own pain.

I still had to go to school. I still had to care about getting good grades and getting into college. I had to pretend to care about so many things when, really, all I could think about was the fact that I felt I had lost the one and only person who had understood me and that I was alone in the world, again. I couldn't feel that pain or honor it.

Parents and well-meaning peers told me to "get over it," so I hid it. I "sucked it up" and it became tighter and smaller and it morphed in my heart into a black ball of anger that followed me. Situations and years came and went and my anger just knotted in upon itself and I raged.

I raged! And the more I raged, the more I found to be mad at - righteously (I thought). Patriarchy, sexism, racism, genocide, cruelty, the Native holocaust. Ani DiFranco sang "I'm not angry, anymore," and I screamed back at her. "Fuck you, Ani. I'm still angry!" Hundreds of personal and cultural and worldly slights to be mad at until I spun myself out of anger in exhaustion some time in my late 20's - right around the time Hubby and I started dating.


During my period of rage, I pulled back from any vulnerability. My anger made me strong. It made me goal driven. It gave me scholarships and grants and awards and accolades far beyond my schooling and years. It gave me fire and it gave me drive. It made me hard.

When I did form relationships, I was so terrified of being hurt again, I kept everyone at bay. Even those that knew me for years only had an illusion of intimacy. Two year relationships only scratched the surface of "knowing who Bri was." I couldn't be authentic because of my fear, so I sought out other broken, hurt and furious souls, like me. There was no way that these relationships were going to last, but at least the two of us could find comfort in someone who was just as broken as the other was, for a time. And if my partner was broken, too, they wouldn't judge me for my damaged self.

I'm not quite sure what has changed me. Maybe it was Hubby or age. Maybe becoming a mama has softened my edges. Maybe moving back to my hometown has made little Native me want to "bury the hatchet." Maybe picking my art back up, being in therapy, admitting to being in pain, finally getting medical attention, and regular writing are all contributing to my change of heart and mind.

Or maybe it's because I'm 32 and I'm finally ready to start growing into the woman that I'm meant to be in this life, ready to step up and be the creative, the medicine person, the healer that I was always been meant to be. And you will know me, now, by the way I dance with the fire and the wolves.

There could be a hundred different reasons that I'm not the same person, anymore. But I like who I am, now. And I like who I'm becoming. I like that I am content, most days, though I still do have the yearning to grow, to explore, to learn and to create.

I used to be hard, like a scalpel. I find myself, now, becoming soft. My arms, my belly, my eyes, hair, skin and smile. All soft. And I'm okay with this. I'm reclaiming my personal power. I am strong. I've moved beyond my story and am writing a new one.

And, the one thing I want to tell you, my readers, about all of this. I am not special. I'm just one girl, out here, in the middle of the corn fields of Indiana. Trust me. If I, with all my faults and foibles can move from a place of hurt and anger to a place of peace and calm joy, you can too. There is nothing special about what I've done. All it takes is the effort to try.

You, my readers. You are my pack. So, if your heart is aching. If your spirit is downtrodden. If you're angry or alone or misunderstood or feel like you're forgotten - know one thing. There's one soul, out here, who's been exactly where you are and has come through it to a better place. There is hope. There is a way. And you can find it!

Oh my lovelies, I hope this entry finds your heart in a place of joy. If it doesn't, I hope that joy finds you soon.

And please remember that we are all visionaries. We just have to figure out where we excel.

Love to All My Relations,

-Bri

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The Source of Strength

Through the course of writing this blog (it's almost 1 year old!), there is a comment that keeps coming up, time and again. It's not one that I mind, but it's one that confuses me.

I write to inspire. I write to encourage and I write to share my story. I written about testifying in court against my mother and how I'd like to approach my own death. I've written about what it's like to skydive, what it's like to have a stroke and what it's like to have PTSD.

The comment / compliment that keeps coming up, throughout my sharing stories with you is about how strong I am.

To this compliment, I normally reply, "At the end of the day, we're a lot stronger than we think we are," and this is true, but it's not the end of the statement.

Yes, I've had a lot happen to me in my short 32 years. Yes, I've had many adventures and weathered many storms, but I don't think I'm necessarily "stronger" than anyone else. When it comes down to it, there are two options of dealing with what this world can throw at you. You can either weather it and let your story continue, or you can let it break you.

Gandhi has a nice quote about this:

Most of the time, I've chosen to weather things, seek help and try to move beyond them. I choose to not surrender. Most of the time, even through depression and Lupus, I convince myself that my story isn't going to end with the latest setback. I remind myself that my story isn't all written, yet, and that there are many shining and brilliant days awaiting me.

Maybe that, in itself, is strength - refusing to "go quietly into that good night."

But, again, I don't see myself as a "strong person." I merely see myself as a person who decided to not let the bottoming-out define me. We all have failures. We all have tragedies and mistakes and oopsies in our past, but we don't have to let them define who we are, forever.

Yes, I'm depressed and have anxiety. Yes, I grew up in an abusive home and I have health problems. But those things are merely facts about me and things that happened. They are not "me."

In the movie, Dark City, a race of aliens is searching for the existence of the human soul by swapping people's memories between different bodies. At the end of the movie, the aliens state that the soul is more than just the sum of our memories. Our past influences who we are, today and in the future, but we are more at our core than just the sum of our memories.

From what I can see, all "strength" is, really, is the ability to pick yourself up when you've stumbled along the way. And if I or any of my readers have done this, then maybe we're all strong people. We all have falling down moments, but in the world of Oriah Mountain Dreamer in her poem, The Invitation,"

"It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children."

That, I think, is real strength.

So, my lovelies, do you think that you are a strong person? Why or why not? Are you willing to own your strength? Tell me about it.

Until next time,

Love to All My Relations,

-Bri

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Original Art: The Wise Self

The Wise Self
8 1/2" by 11"
Mixed Media
$15.00 Framed color print

This is Water: Changing How We Think

This week, I found this wonderfully amazing video. Before I go on to my thoughts on this subject, please watch it.

Wow! I don't know about you, but that was one of the most amazing videos I've seen, this year.

As much as I try to live my life outside of what people call, "the daily grind," sometimes it sneaks in. Sometimes I do have to go someplace during rush hour in a big city. Sometimes I do need food at peak grocery store hours. Sometimes, life's little annoyances happen to me, too.

And, as much as I try, sometimes I forget my goal. I go into a grocery store in my hometown and see the little brother of an ex-boyfriend. I'm sure he doesn't know why my body posture goes stiff when I see him. I'm sure he doesn't understand why I have to strain for polite words. But his eyes, the eyes that his brother also has, reminds me of a time of great emotional pain.

It is times like these that I remember that I am still struggling with keeping myself grounded, that I am still (despite all my inner work) having a hard time forgiving and that I am not a 100% enlightened being, yet. Still, I do try. In the parking lot, sitting in The Visionary Van, I try to calm my heart rate. I try to find that wise portion of myself which is capable of distancing itself from the memory this boy invoked. I try to feel what it would be like to extend to him, to his family, to even his brother the handshake of friendship and shared experience that I try to offer all of humanity.

My art, my writing, my creativity, my inner emotional and spiritual work. These things are not separate. They are all intrinsically linked to each other. Back before my loads of inner emotional and spiritual work, my art was about pain and longing. It connected with people on an emotional level of shared sadness and suffering. I even received some minor notoriety for it, publishing 3 books and having 1 art showing.

As I began to change and heal, my art and writing began to change. I began to see how we can connect with each other through the shared experience of beauty, joy and (the most basic heart response) love. I began to put my lifelong quest for modes of healing into my writing, into this blog, into seeking out others who are shining out the same light I am.

I know I am not alone in this journey. I know that there are a million souls out there on this planet and beyond that are seeking a connection with each other. We are seeking something more than what we've been shown. We are looking out into the night sky and deep into the eyes of our neighbor, asking each the same question, "Is there anyone that feels like I do?"

Well, I can tell you, my lovelies - YES! There are millions of us out here. You are not alone!

When we change the way we think, when we change the way we view our own world, our lives begin to change. Nights that were once spent alone and terrified of our aching need to be loved are replaced with nights where we are alone and comfortable in our solitude because we know that we are never, ever really "alone." No matter what we have gone through or what we desire to create, another soul in this vast place has felt and desired the same thing.

No matter where you are in your journey, just keep remembering that what you look for, you will find. Just keep reminding yourself to be kind, to seek your truth, to be as creative and joyful and peaceful as you can. We will meet, one day. Of that, I am certain. And, oh do I look forward to that meeting. I can't wait to see your eyes as you see that, yes, I am a real person and, no, you aren't really alone.

Choose what you desire your life to be and seek to make it so. Remember - this is water!


Until next time, my lovelies, please remember that we are all visionaries. We just have to figure out where we excel.

Love to All,

-Bri

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My Visionaries, Talk to Me!

My lovely readers,

An opportunity has landed itself in my lap and, being the loyal readers you are, I wanted to ask if you'd be okay with it.

A company has contacted me to do some marketing for them. This would be a year long marketing plan using an ethical, creative product that I know all of my lady and lady-boy readers out there would just love.

As you know, I'm disabled with Systemic Lupus. I have a daughter and a stepson and I'm on a very limited income. If successful, this marketing campaign could make me some much needed money for my family. But if you, my readers, don't want to see that kind of content on this site, please let me know.

The only thing it would be is 2 - 3 sponsored posts a month with me showing you how to do some really cool artsy-stuff tutorials. (Possibly via video with a giveaway thrown in there for good measure!) The product is vegan and does no animal testing, so I'm okay with them on that level. So I've put together this little survey. Please take a moment to fill it out for me to let me know what you think.

If you feel inspired to leave a comment, too, please feel free to do so. I love you, my gentle readers, and don't want to offend you.

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond, my lovelies.

And, as always, please remember that we are all visionaries. We just have to figure out where we excel.

Love to All,

-Bri

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Levitate - Can You?

I found this video last week and I was amazed. Before I go on, I'll let you watch it.

The song is by a band named Hadouken and is called "Levitate." The lyrics are as follows:

Heart in my mouth, but my head in the clouds yeah
I can feel it rising
Bound to the Earth but, we could ascend yeah
I’m realizing
I feel both feet lift off the ground
I can levitate
With every truth that leaves I close my eyes
And levitate


Oh, my darlings. Where to start? Every time I see videos like this of my fellow humans reaching for the sky, I am inspired. Every time I hear a song that alludes to Universal Truth, I feel so grateful to be alive.

My dears, each of us can aspire to be the highest and best versions of ourselves possible. We can take up the mantle of our Spirit-given gifts and run with them. We can use them every day in this world to lift each other up, inspire each other, help each other.

The truth of it is that we can work together, if we can put all of our efforts into making this world beautiful and whole, we CAN levitate. We can raise each other up, higher and higher. By working together, can banish poverty and sickness and the hurt that lies in the hearts of our neighbors.

I may be an idealist. I may speak of something that is beyond what we think the people of this world are capable of doing, but I have hope. Even if it doesn't happen until I'm long, long dead, I believe that we can turn our lives around and shine forward our best faces for The Universe to see.

Be amazed, my lovelies. Be in awe. Be humbled by this world and all the people in it and give thanks that you are alive to see such wonders. The Babylonians couldn't even conceive of a thing like the internet, where we can talk to anyone, anywhere in the world at pretty much any time we desire. That we, through technology, have access to all the collective knowledge that man has amassed. How cool of a thought is that?

And we take it for granted.

I believe, dears, that we can levitate. More than levitate, I believe that we can fly past what we've ever thought possible. I think it's only a matter of time before every soul, everywhere sees it. I'm just the visionary.

For a long time in this life, I was angry. Sure, I was happy and sad and in awe, but beneath all those emotions at the core of me was anger. And I was angry at everything. I was angry with sexism and classism and racism and homophobia. I was angry that I had a traumatic childhood. I was angry that people around me teased me and found me to be "less than" them. I was angry that I'd been hurt and I was angry because, in my mind, I secretly felt that I deserved every single crap thing that happened to me . . .

I know. It's tough to admit. . .

I am different, now. Now, my underlying emotion is one of joy. Sure, I get sad and I get mad, but my "default setting," now, is joy. But my anger made me fierce. In my younger years, my anger galvanized me into someone who could look past all of the negative and see through to the light.

And, now, I can turn back and show everyone the path. Through my words and art, I can tell my story and illustrate to you that, if I've walked the path of coming through all the worlds' negativity, you can too. No matter your story, you can step beyond it into a life of pure, unbridled, down-to-the-tip-of-your-toes happy.

Right now, I'm levitating. But I can't do it alone. In order to truly fly, I need other to come to where I am. We all need each other. We are communal organisms. We thrive best, together.

I'm so happy that you are all coming with me on this journey of life. I feel blessed to be able to write to you.

Until next time, please remember that we are all visionaries. We just have to figure out where we excel.

Love to All,


-Bri


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In a Bad Funk

Today, I'm in a funk. My body doesn't feel right. My head isn't clear. In general, things suck.

Even I have days like this.

I'm in the grocery store at 10 o'clock at night, staring into the frozen food cases. My shoulders are slouched. My hair is pulled back in a low ponytail. I don't have on any socks or makeup and I'm wearing pajama pants. Through the frost-coated glass doors, I'm trying to figure out what flavor of ice cream contains the secret to getting my happy back.

I know this won't work, but everything else I've tried has failed.

It's snowing out. There are clouds from horizon to horizon, so there's no sun to bathe in. When I get home, I know that hubby and the kids have bathed, so sitting down in the shower and letting hot water run over me? Not going to happen.

Cookie Dough? Pistachio? Strawberry? Super-Fudgy-Chunk?

I stare at the rainbow of little pint containers. Finally, I select one I haven't tried before. "Maybe it's just that I've not tried ALL the flavors, yet," I think to myself.

Again, I know this isn't true, but I'm grasping at straws.

As I'm walking to the checkout line, it hits me. Potato chips. I want salt. I bypass the checkout line and stroll down the aisle with different colored mylar bags just winking at me in the florescent light. "Why do stores keep putting florescent lights in? Don't they know that it just makes people feel worse?" I think.

I select a bag of popcorn instead of the chips and I think, "These are healthier . . . I think." The bag is black and I remember how a cashier once, about 4 months ago, who told me that she didn't feel any smarter after eating the bag of corn, despite what the company who made it was called. Some cynical remark about the cashier's intelligence that I don't mean skitters across my brain like a beetle.

Then a song so depressing comes on the PA that it feels like the world is just conspiring with my funk to keep my shoulders slouched.

 
At home, I sit with a spoon, watching some comedian's special on my television for the 20th time. I know the jokes. I'm not laughing, anymore. But, somehow, the familiar voice cadence of a routine that I know by heart makes me less agitated. I love the lilts of the comedian's voice. I love the little laughs and sidetracks that happen in the moment.

I spoon the ice cream in my mouth. Then, when I'm done, I mute the television. I pull out my laptop and I write, "Today, I'm in a funk."

I can't change the fact that I'm in this strange funk that nothing seems to be able to penetrate, so I try to do something with it. I put it down on the page. In words or art, I put it down. I try to get it out of me so that it doesn't stay and wreck the next couple of days.

I think back to what may be the root of my malaise. Is it the fact that there hasn't been sun in a couple of days 'cause it's winter in Indiana? Did I do too much at that television interview and now, with my Lupus, I'm paying the price for it? Did I miscalculate my spoons? Did the nightmares that I woke screaming from cause me not to get enough good sleep, again?

It's pointless to try and figure it out. It may be one, all, or none of those reasons and knowing doesn't help me, at all. So I write. And I write. And I write some more. I pour it out on the page.

That's what I do when things are crap and nothing seems to make them better. I watch television. I eat ice cream. I take my pills and I type on my computer. I read books. I play with Pookie while sitting in bed. Maybe it's just my body trying to tell me that I need this cave time - that I need to hunker down and just not be as many things to people as I usually am. Or maybe this is just another one of those things that come with having Lupus.

So I try to get by with my ice cream and comedy specials. And maybe tomorrow I'll feel better. Maybe tomorrow the clouds will break and the wind will quit blowing stinging snow in my face and I can get out and take a walk. Maybe I'll go into a store and not hear depressing songs in minor chords. And maybe there could be Alfredo for dinner. Tomorrow. All tomorrow.

Today, it's time to be honest. It's time to write. Today, there's the truth of everything and the power of being authentic - of not pretending that everything is okay.

Today, I'm in a bad funk and I can't figure a way out.

How to Begin

Someone commented a couple of weeks ago, wondering how I center, myself to begin creating. This commenter said that they wasted their first 10-15 minutes just trying to figure out how to begin. I'd like to answer this commenter, now, because I think we all struggle with this from time to time.

Dear Anonymous Commenter,

I understand what you're saying. My process tends to be a bit erratic. I don't sit down every day at the same time and write. I know writers and other creatives that have that kind of a process, but it doesn't work for me. I will tell you about "how" I go about writing and I'll give you some suggestions that may help you. Take from this what speaks to you and leave what doesn't. All of us face this issue, at times, and we all have our little quirky ways of trying to deal with it. Do what feels right for you.

First, my process for creating anything starts with an idea - as all things do. I know writers that sit down at the page or artists that stand in front of the paper and don't know what's going to come out. That's okay, if that's you, but it's not me. So, I start with an idea and I come up with things to write about all the time. I keep a list of them in the back of my sketchbook so, if on a particular day I know I should write, I just select one that speaks to me at that time and go.

How do I center to begin? Well, first of all, my enviornment is very important for me. We all have our preferences. I need to be able to be in a place where I can have laser-like focus, then back off and give myself a "brain break." I like to write in a local bar, for this reason. I can sit in a booth and have my reference materials scattered around me while I focus and sip coffee, or I can go to the bar and have a friendly conversation. Then, back to the task at hand.

If I'm unable to be at the bar I prefer, I write sitting in my bed. Now I know that all the sleep experts say not to do anything in bed but sleep, but that' s never worked for me. My bed is soft, it's comfy, my back is supported and I can have something on Netflix in the background for noise.

Now, for timing. I find myself to be almost completely 100% unable to create in the daytime. No matter the project, when the sun is up, I just can't bring myself to focus on it. I like creating at night. I like that all things become possible in the dark and the shadows, that things become more intimate in the dark. I feel like I can hear my inner creative voice better when the glaring light of day is done. This normally means that I don't get to sleep until 2 - 4 am, but it's the schedule that I work best on.

As far as the actual doing goes, like I said, I have an idea in my head so I've already got some idea where I'm going to go. What I hear when you say that you "don't know where to begin" is that you're afraid you're going to begin "wrong." And let me tell you something - that's what editing is for. That's what proofreading is for. Please let go of that fear of being wrong. Just jump in. Writing begins with just one sentence. A piece of artwork begins with just one sketched line. There's nothing in the RULES OF WRITING (which we're all afraid of breaking) that says those first little attempts have to appear in the finished product.

When I was 15, I took an amazing weekend writing retreat with the absolutely incredible Pat Schneider. (I recommend every single one of her books, so get them all! They're one of the best resources out there.) Pat introduced me to timed writing, encouraged all of us to just get our hand moving, to break through the fear of doing it "wrong" and just be ourselves on the page. She encouraged us just to show up, to tell our truth and to let that be. At first, it was scary. I looked around the room at all the other people who were so much older than me. They were just scribbling away. Finally, I just took a deep breath and wrote, "I don't know how to do this. I'm afraid that all the other people in here are Shakespeare and I'm just some stupid kid babbling on the page." I was honest. I stayed with my first thoughts (the ones before the fear, the most honest ones) and wrote them down. Eventually, the fear fell away because I realized that even Shakespeare didn't get it write the first time. Iambic pentameter doesn't flow from our mouths or thoughts naturally. Even the greats have to work at their craft. Also check out the books by Natalie Goldberg and Julia Cameron. Very great ladies!

 Sometimes, when I have something deeply personal and intense that I want to write about, I picture a friend in my mind. At the top of the page, I write "Dear (Whoever I'm Writing To)." Sometimes it helps me to pretend that I'm telling this story to a close friend because if you can sit and tell your close friends a story and have them saying, "Really? What happened then?" it means that you're a writer. That's all writing is. It's telling a story.

Imagine that you've got a good friend or someone you love sitting in front of you. You want to tell them this story, you want to give them a message. Don't worry about "passive or active voice." Don't worry about punctuation, about spelling or grammar. Just get your thoughts on the page. Just be honest and make sure they person that you're picturing is someone that loves you, that cares about you and that fundamentally approves of everything you do. If you don't have someone like that in your life, pick someone famous or from history that you think could understand you.

When I'm writing, sometimes I write to Changing Woman, White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman, The Magdalene or Tori Amos. If I'm writing about something especially strange, in my head, I will talk to The Blogess. All these women, I think they would understand me. I think that we could be friends, if ever given the chance. Of course, some of these women may not even exist, but it doesn't matter to me. It works. Then, during the editing process, I go back and erase, "Dear Whomever." It allows my voice to flow out of me, to be sincere and it allows me writing to sound like I am actually speaking to you, my reader.

In short, don't let the fear of not doing something "correctly," get the better of you. Begin. Just begin. Jump into it, flounder around, do it poorly. It's okay. You can always go back, later, and erase a sentence or change a word or rework a line. At the beginning, nothing is set in stone. The most important thing is to get your thoughts out of your head and down onto the paper or into the file or whatever. If you don't, they will never ever be shared with the world and your unique perspective piece of human history will be lost forever. And what a terrible thing to lose.

My dear, no matter who you are and no matter where you are. Be brave! Be strong and allow yourself to mess up or be vulnerable. I believe in you and I hope this post helped.


Until next time my loves, please remember that we are all visionaries. We just have to figure out where we excel,


Love to All,


Bri


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The Nightmare Should Be Over: Dealing with PTSD

♫ And though the nightmare should be over
some of the terrors are still intact
I hear that ugly, coarse and violent voice
and then (s)he grabs me from behind
and then (s)he pulls me back ♫

The lyrics above are from a song by Meat Loaf called "Objects in the Rearview Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are." 

Those lyrics strike very close to home for those of us with PTSD. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder can happen for a myriad of reasons. Basically, it boils down to a person being exposed to stress where they feel that their life or safety may be in danger. If this happens often enough over a period of time, the body and the mind can be effected long after the stressful situation has passed.

For those of us who have survived abuse or trauma, our lives can be ruled by the effects of PTSD. We avoid certain places. We alter our habits. The most seemingly innocent things make us uncomfortable, scared, or even (in the cases of war survivors) violent.

I am not the first of my family to have PTSD. My dear father's father killed himself by carbon monoxide poisoning when my dad was 18. My dad found the body and tried to perform CPR on a body that had already gone through rigor mortis. To this day, the smell of car exhaust fumes in a confined area makes my father sick to his stomach. It reminds him of that horrid day and brings up all the emotions associated with how his family fell apart, after that tragedy.

 My father at 18 years old

In the case of having been abused either by a parent or lover, after one gets away, they may unconsciously put themselves back into a different abusive relationship. And a person may do this because that is what "feels normal" to them. I know that's what I did and it took some real inner work to break that cycle.

Throughout my life, my mother was severely psychologically and emotionally abusive to both my father and I. There was physical abuse thrown in there, as well, but it happened less frequently. My mother controlled what we ate, how much we were allowed to sleep, what clothes we could wear, almost every aspect of our lives. She accused us of "crimes" we didn't commit. She spread rumors about us, lied to us, stole from us and generally made our lives miserable. If her whims weren't satisfied, we paid the price. 

My father and I even developed our own sign language to communicate with each other so she couldn't hear us. It got so bad that she even manipulated how my father and I could even speak to each other. And, when we did speak, she pitted us against one another.

When you're a person who is trapped, living with a crazy-making person like my mother was, you almost develop a sixth sense. Other abuse survivors I've talked to have this sense, as well. This extra sense is the ability to read the energy of a room. You learn this as a survival trait. If you can "sense" when your abuser is mad, even before seeing them, you can try to preemptively soothe them or maybe steer clear and avoid their wrath. 

To this day, I notice very small modulations in people's speech, tiny differences in the way their face moves that may indicate either anger or sadness. When I think someone may not be 100% on stable mental turf, I still try to almost instinctively soothe them. Living a life on the edge of distaster with an abusive person made me hyper-aware of changes to my surroundings.

It wasn't until I was 27 and my parents got divorced that I realized how bad it really was in "The House of Unending Hostility." Once I got some physical and psychological distance, I realized how badly she had effected both my father and I. Five years after their divorce, my father and I still talk about it, we still try to process those years and we still sit in disbelief. Yes. It did happen. No, we're not crazy and we're not making it up. It really was that bad.

When an abused person gets out and then goes back to what we think is "normal," the cycle is incredibly hard to break. When I left college at age 20, I moved in with a boyfriend who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic. For 2 years, our electricity got turned off periodically, but there was always whiskey and beer in the refrigerator. 

Living with him was a dark time of high drama and he literally tried to killed me, once. There are times, still, in my nightmares, when I can still feel his hands around my throat, feel myself losing breath and see the world going dark.

♫ And now I still believe (s)he never let me leave
I had to run away, alone
So many threats and fears, so many wasted years
before my life became my own ♫

Now that I haven't spoken to or even been in my mothers' presence for 5 years, I can see how bad it was. Now that I can begin to distance myself and reflect on the relationships of my past, I can begin to heal the wounds and scars that they left.

The day before Thanksgiving, I went to the store where the abusive alcoholic boyfriend was employed while we were together. I haven't spoken to him in 9 years, but I live back in the town where he and I lived, together. It's hard. There are businesses I refuse to go in because of the association with him. There are people I am afraid to talk to, even though I'd like their friendship, because I'm afraid that information about me will get back to him and I'll have to run for my life across state lines, again. It's irrational. I know this. But that's how PTSD works. The fear for your safety is so ingrained that it turns into either fight-or-flight or complete shut-down when the memories are brought back up.

Through counseling and medication, I've come to accept that the abuse that has happened to me wasn't my fault and that I don't have to let those past traumas rule me. I can begin to retrain my brain to remember that I'm no longer back there, in those situations. I am safe. My daughter, Pookie, and my hubby are my reality, now. 

I haven't completely been able to forgive the perpetrators for their actions, but I've begun to challenge and beat the fear.

Today, I went to his store. I hadn't set foot in there for 9 years. I used to take him his lunch every day. He brought home dinner from this store. I walked in there, so many times, with a smile plastered on my face, yet afraid that someone could read on my face what was really going on. He had made it very clear that, for office politic reasons, it was important that I impress these coworkers by being a "dutiful girlfriend." I was terrified of displeasing him. I was petrified that they would see through my eyes and down into my heart, all the way down to my wrenching desire to be loved and the desperation I was experiencing.

I parked The Visionary Van outside and I looked up at the store's sign. Even 9 years later, just seeing the logo of the store made me want to run, to pass on by, to avoid. Deep breaths, I thought. Deep breaths. He's not here. He hasn't been here for a long time. None of the people that work in there would probably even remember who he was. I talked myself into walking across the parking lot, opening the wide glass door and going into the store. You're safe, I told myself. 

Still, I found myself glancing at every employee, ready to run. See? They're not even wearing the same uniforms. It's okay. You're just a customer. Look around.

As I browsed the store, I noticed that the various departments weren't even laid out in the same manner that I remembered them. That helped. Making my way through the new layout, I wandered down aisles. To any on-looker, I was just another customer perusing the shelves. But, inside, this was monumental. My heart wasn't pounding in my ears. My feet weren't backing away. 

You don't own me anymore, I thought. You're not going to live rent-free in my head anymore. You can't hurt me. See? I am strong. I'm getting over all the crap you beat me down with. I'm not angry, anymore, and I'm not scared. I will not let this rule me.


I looked at Christmas gifts for my Precious Pookie. Amid all the colorful softness of the toy aisle, I felt so thankful that I had come so far. I had the little girl I had always wanted, but never thought I'd have. Holding a stuffed lady bug, silky soft and sweet, I just knew that Pookie would giggle with delight when she saw it. In that moment, my eyes welled up with tears of joy. To come full circle and to stand on the exact same cream and brown tile floor, so happy, where I had once stood and been so sad and scared, my heart broke open and I wept.

I wish that, when I left that store, that it was magical. I wish I could tell you that I walked back to The Visionary Van with my fist raised to the sky in victory. I didn't. I wish I could tell you that I fell to my knees and thanked every god that ever was for helping me on this road. I didn't. I just walked back to my purple minivan.

That was it. Plain, simple and innocuous. No triumphant music gave any clue to the world what I had just stared down. Memories. Past. Fear. Helplessness. To any observer who doesn't know my history, who doesn't have these memories or this heart that was crushed by people who professed love, the title of this blog post would have been, Today, I Browsed Christmas Gifts In a Store.

Dear souls, as you go about your lives, please occasionally try to remember this. That person who just cut you off in traffic? Maybe their sister just died. That lady who was three cents short for the ice cream? Maybe she just faced down a personal demon and was rewarding herself. (Psst! That was me!) 'Cause we don't get theme music rocketing down from the ether at significant moments in our life. We're just people going about our day and living. We're just little beings, trying to make the best of the hand we've been dealt. And, in my book, that's worth a little ice cream, from time to time. 

 My father (today) with his awesome girlfriend and my daughter, Pookie

Lovelies, this isn't the end of my story or my struggle, no. This Earth-shaking day was only one step in a process. Coming out the other side of trauma and abuse can have a happy story that follows it. No matter what you've gone through, your story can continue past fear. It can continue past pain, past betrayal, past hurt and lies, negative self image, anger and the urge to run away.

And maybe your path will take you far away. To mountains and oceans. Maybe you'll be known by a different name. And maybe, just maybe, the road will wind and bend you gently back to the town you started in, to friends and family that will sing triumphant out-of-tune songs with you while passing the chocolate syrup.

 

Whatever you're facing, my dears, please remember that we are all visionaries. We just have to figure out where we excel.


My heart goes out to you and joins with yours.
I send you hope and serendipity.
Love to all,


Bri



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I Affirmed I Would Tell the Truth

I affirmed I would tell the truth. I raised my right hand, my left clutching my black wool coat and I swore. It’s times like these, in a courtroom shivering from nerves, that I realized that doing what was right and telling the truth is, sometimes, one of the hardest things in life to do.

Truth. No lies. What you heard, saw, and experienced. Undiluted, naked. Uncluttered by fancy words or metaphors. No flowery speech. No well thought-out monologue.

In the days before, I mentally went over my testimony. Not just what I was being questioned on, I expounded and spoke long monologues to the judge in my head about what had put me in this position. Long childhood years of fights and abuse, of lies a child should not be coerced to tell a parent, of neglects behind closed doors.