Yes my childhood was not one you would call the “American Dream”. In comparison to many far worse off than mine, I generally was a healthy, active little girl who was loved by most throughout my life. I was raised by my maternal grandmother at the age of 8 once the state allowed her to do so out of foster care. She ensured I never went to bed hungry, missed a school function or basketball game. I was a smart and athletic child who grew up learning how to overcome (or bury in my case) many emotional hardships and disappointments. I chose rebelling over obedience in most things. I chose control and independence over seeking compassion, or help. Although mostly level headed, I chose what I did and when I did it. And my poor sweet grandmother, who had the softest heart of gold, couldn’t even attempt to tell me any difference as she was simply trying to teach me how to accept being loved in a very hurtful world. These callous, and poor coping mechanisms continued to grow and grow as I progressed throughout my life creating a false sense of success and control. They instilled self-esteem issues as well as toxic expectations for both myself and those around me. I pushed myself harder than most because I made myself believe that I deserved better. I pushed to prove the world wrong, to prove that I was somebody, because deep down I felt like a nobody. And year after year, decision after decision, I kept digging myself further and further into a hole filled with deep scars by continuously covering up, or blocking out my pain and failures. By trying to find hope, love, and peace in all of the wrong places.
Fast forward through about 15 years of many personal and professional changes seeking the American Dream we all aspire to have some day. All loaded up on coffee, my usual daily choice of hydration, I take you into my first “childhood trauma” therapy session at the age of 37 (yes, you read correctly, at 37 years old, only 2 years ago). This is when I finally was put onto my knees and realized that I “needed help.” After completing the requested questionnaires about my personal life, I sat there in the most awkward silence staring at the therapist waiting on her response. Wishing we could just be done so I could go home. She looked up at me and we just glared at each other. I mean who wants to even talk about personal matters with a complete stranger? Especially when “I already knew everything” and was just going to throw whatever they said out of the window. 😒 But, I was there to satisfy a process of trying to save my marriage and was willing to at least hear what had to be said. As the awkward silence grew to being too much, I gave in and used one of my favorite coping mechanisms (my sarcasm) and smirked, making a joke and saying something along the lines of “Yeah, I know, I’m pretty much a lost cause at this point. You have your work cut out for you.” The therapist, however, did not respond with laughter, and the next thing she said was something that may have just changed my life.
After the longest few minutes of my life she responded, “Well, I think that you are a walking miracle, and that is something to be proud of.” Thoroughly confused, and honestly a bit insulted, I inquired why she thought and would even say this. I mean, was I just there because I was bored?!? My life was in shambles. My 13 year marriage was coming to an end. The only thing I really even knew was how to take care of my family. I mean, I subconsciously made this my only goal in life to ensure I was nothing like my past. Nothing like my mother. Yet, I was drowning in disrespect, psychological abuse and bullying from someone who I once devoted my life to. Someone who was, in hind-site, just as sick, traumatized, and lost as I was. My mind though was circling in every direction possible. Circling all at the same time blaming myself as well as others for all of MY problems. Thinking this woman had no idea what she was talking about. I had two kids that were watching me escape and hide in the bathroom for hours at a time during emotional breakdowns because I didn’t want them to see or know that I was an unfit mother and unable to address their emotional needs at that time. I could barely get through my day as a nurse helping others, because in reality I couldn’t even take care of myself. I was strictly in survivor mode, and that was hard. The amount of times I questioned driving off into the Arkansas River outnumbered the number of smiles I was able to fake on a daily basis. My face literally screamed “Ma’am, I am a walking failure and embarrassment. Why in the heck would you call me “a walking miracle”?? The silence of chaos running through my mind then stopped as she continued… “Well, if you answered honestly on this questionnaire (which I did), statistically you should be either dead, or living under a bridge wishing you were dead. Yet here you sit, completely opposite of that trying to get a grasp on life. And that makes you a walking miracle, don’t you think?”
Now, by no means, is this post, or blog for that matter, any kind of attempt to seek pity, or attention. Nor is it any kind of effort to boast. It is far from it. But with full transparency, yes, it appears that out of the twenty plus risk factors questioned on that dark gloomy piece of paper that brought back decades of thoughts, pains and emotions; I had personally experienced a staggering almost 80% of them indicating a substantially high risk of failure in my life. Statistically speaking, my childhood roadmap had my final destination set to becoming an unfit mother being addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, a continued victim of abuse, or even abusive myself, living a life of poverty, possibly prison, and/or most likely an early death. Yet here I was, somehow a generally healthy, successful, young, master’s degree college graduate, and loving, caring mother defying statistics. I was surviving life, yet drowning in confusion, self esteem issues and an inability to truly love myself or others. And this realization opened up both my heart and my mind, encouraging me to start asking real questions and seeking real answers.
I left this therapy session asking myself, how?? And why?? I completed these weekly therapy sessions for months digging and digging into my past. Stirring up decades of bottled up emotions, pain, and fear that were put into little closets of my mind so that I’d never have to revisit them again. Luckily for me, some pretty amazing people were placed into my life that helped lead me towards an answer to all the questions I kept asking. And that answer was God. See, there was a reason that I was in this world. There was a reason my mother did not have an abortion. There was a reason I survived the many poor decisions I made in my life by drowning my pain in alcohol and promiscuity time and time again. There was a reason I was where I was in life when statistics stated I should be elsewhere. There was a reason that each and every individual who came into my life was there when they were and a lesson to be learned with each and every one of them. And that reason was not that I was a strong woman. It was not because I was an overcomer. It was not because of anything at all that I had done at all other than holding on to that mustard seed of faith… It was because of God. It was to realize that I had no control over my life. That I had to let go, and trust Him. It was to learn to seek Him for my own undeserving forgiveness, for guidance, and for the peace that He can only give. It was to learn who He was and that I did have a Father who loved, forgave, and protected me year after year while selfishly living my life on my own terms. I was here, halfway through my time on this earth, in one of the darkest times of my life to seek my Father. And to give Him the glory every step of the way by simply sharing my story. For by His grace, and His grace alone, I am still here. I am still able to tell this story to anyone and everyone who will listen. Hopefully helping any single one of you reading this who needs to know that your situation, your circumstances, the many bad decisions, none of these things define who you are or where you should end up. They do not define us at all, they are only a part of our story. We simply have to make the decision to respond to life’s hard life lessons on our own limited knowledge and understanding, or to seek that of our all-knowing and all-powerful Creator who loves us as we are. If you are on this same journey, I’d love to hear from you!
