#familysecrets
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To doublethink is mandatory when you are a child who has experienced abuse. Another example of doublethink is thinking on the one hand that you have no hope of escape and on the other hand that it will be better tomorrow. It is, literally, double thinking. Somehow the mind splits so that both realities can…
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I sometimes wonder if the greatest spiritual discipline is not fasting or silence or waking up at 5 a.m. to read Greek words out of a study Bible. I think maybe it’s just staying. Staying married when the house smells like coffee grounds and old arguments. When love stops performing tricks for you. When two…
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For a long time, I lived without discipline and called it freedom. It wasn’t. It was decay. Addiction thrives where structure collapses. My days had no spine. Sleep came whenever it came. Promises bent. Routines dissolved. I could not uphold the smallest order, which meant I could not build anything that lasted. Nothing worthwhile survives…
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I published this over three years ago. It’s worth another share . . . Abuse never stands alone. There are so many complicated areas that abusers weave into the fabric of the perfectly crafted prison cells they make for us. Many of us barely escape, and when we do, we usually never talk about it.…
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What better way to start a week but through introspection. QUESTION: If I asked myself the question, “How do I harm myself?” I have a myriad of ways. Oh, we know the usual harms of hurting our flesh (over eating or self-indugent behavior of any kind). But, beyond the obvious ways — what about harming…
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What better way to start a week but through introspection. QUESTION: What if we all stood up together and insisted on justice, said we will accept nothing less than change, and the ability to tell our stories. Given the prevalence of incest, and that the family is the basic unit upon which society rests, imagine…
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As a child, the first thing we learn when coming through childhood tragedies is to remain quiet. Don’t tell is the very first rule we are given. The problem is we did see, we did hear and we still didn’t tell. If we are ever going to change our pasts, we have to break the…
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There is a saying that “Jesus was born to die.” If Jesus was born to die, I was birthed to suffer. I don’t recall a day in my childhood that didn’t have suffering in it. Maybe I had moments where I enjoyed something – an ice cream, a bike ride, but there was always embedded…
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When we learn to articiulate what our abuse took from us, we can grieve appropriately and begin to heal. If we sit in a muck of undiscovery, never articulating what we feel, we stay stuck, unhealed and a stranger to ourselves. Why discuss it? If you were a child when these sexual crimes happened to…
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Pain, mercy, abuse – it’s all born out of rejection. When my father was dying he and I had a six-hour conversation. We talked about a lot. I asked him who hadn’t seen his pain. I pushed the question again, saying, “Dad, was it your mother who didn’t see your pain?” He looked down at…