The Healing Process

I read back over older journal entries from the past year and I am so encouraged to see that I am not in that dark place anymore.  I really came to the brink.  I was faced with choosing to live or choosing to die.  I chose to live!  Healing is a long and very slow process.  Learning to listen to myself and my own instincts is a difficult task.  For so long I had a person who acted as my compass.  He told me when I was right and when I was wrong, his approval meant everything to me and his disappointment or anger towards me could tear my soul to pieces.  Now I am learning to rely on my own voice.  It is an arduous task to trust yourself and to not expect someone to come along and help you.  I struggle daily to remind myself that I am not a victim and that this is a gift not a punishment.  I work diligently to trust that the universe has a grander plan for me than I can possibly have for myself.  My job is to move forward everyday with love and forgiveness.  Forgiving myself is challenging enough and someday I will work to release the anger and forgive those who have harmed me.  For now, I am working to take care of me first and others second.  This is a new way of doing things for me as I have always been a woman who put her husband and kids first.  I believed that if they were happy then I was a good person and was doing a exceptional job.  What I am discovering is that I am only responsible for my happiness and my happiness is up to me only!

The She That Used To Be Me

Today I was going over some of the entries in my journal and thought that I would share some of them.  It is important for me to see where I was and where I am now.  Healing is a long slow process.
This entry was written in May 2015:

I am not a great mom, or a great friend.  I am not good to myself or others.  I no longer am looking for opportunities to help others, or be a role model or teach.  My words and stories fall on deaf ears.  When I talk, people talk over me or just walk away.  I have become invisible.  "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine" now just a sad song, a long forgotten memory of someone that was.  I miss her.  Does anyone besides me even notice she is gone.  Do they believe she will come back.  She is lost forever.  She has parished.  She is no longer.  Her memory faded quickly.  The mark she left had very little staying power, like a footprint in the sand, it was quickly swallowed up leaving no trace behind. If you walked behind her, you would now not know that she had ever been here.  I believed she was different and made a lasting difference.  I thought that she touched and changed lives.  Maybe I was wrong about that too.  I had so much to give, I have nothing now and no desire to share the nothing that has become me.  Even my misery I hoard selfishly.  I felt guilty but now I feel nothing.  I spare others from having to be infected by what I have grown into.  I am weeds and thorns.  I don't want to hurt you but I must keep you at a distance in order to protect you.  It is safer this way.  It is better.  How do I live like this?  This isn't living.  I stopped living.  Time is precious and I squander it away knowing that should my soul even awaken again, the guilt will overcome me.  So much time wasted, but for now I am laid to waste.  Everyone will go on, grow and thrive despite me.  I don't feel sorry for myself, I no longer bath in the cold depths of self pity.  I am no ones victim.  I am a particle, small and lonely, blown by the wind, going wherever it takes me.  I expect nothing so I am not disappointed.  My expectations do not linger any longer.  I don't hold you to a higher standard anymore, you are released, you are free from my judgements.