A journal entry from 1.3.2013
All day today I have been hearing that Mary J. Blige song “Just Fine”. I made it through a tumultuous year. If you had told me everything that happened in my life was a promise I would have laughed. I believe I can be more than a survivor. I can thrive. I know how to hold on to my Joy. (still holding 3.25.2013)
I am still in therapy and I plan on staying for the long haul this time. I am truly falling in love with me. I had told myself that I deserved bad things to happen to me as restitution to what I thought I had done to people I love. My therapist had me look at and what I found was that I was quick to take the blame for everything that went wrong in my children’s’ lives, the people I was in relationship with or any other situation. It was easier to be the scapegoat that way I did not have to address the issues.
Our society conditions women to wear guilt like a cloak of honor. A case in point is my divorce and the custody battle. My ex husband had one of the best and most expensive lawyers in Missouri and they had plotted their plan of action against me months before I ever spoke to a lawyer. The Legal Services of Eastern Missouri http://www.lsem.org/ could not help me in the late 90’s, I hope the patriarchal stupidity has stopped
because they used his income to decide if I qualified for help. Although, it was documented that he was physically abusive.
Of course he won custody but I am still treated as if I abandoned my children. Not once has anyone said anything negative about a man who would take his children from their mother when there was no history of anything negative. As I look back I can understand his perseverance to keep them away from my incestuous family. He knew all about the Sexual abuse of me and my siblings and was determined to keep his children from that and I don’t blame him. Looking back with 20/20, things happened the way that they were supposed to.
But I do blame myself and allow others to guilt trip me. (working on changing my thoughts)
It showed up in my relationships. Particularly the most recent involvement with a woman that triggered me to relive my trauma and neglect. I clung to her with my life, and would not let go because doing so meant I had to stop blaming myself and do the hard work of healing. I willing allowed her to tell me all of our problems were because “I had issues”. She was abusive and I made excuses for her so I could live in denial, but that is another story..
I am grateful to know that I can be alone with myself and have peace. That was something I had lost last year.
I am still free from the fear of being alone. 3.25.2013
The Souls' Poet 