I finally killed George.

Healing is amazing. The man that raped me at 5 was named George. Before therapy anytime I heard the name George I would immediately be transported in my mind to him raping me. So I avoided George at all times. If I overheard the name I had to put my armor on. Without even knowing it that name had the power to send me to my bed for days.

Where I work the Fitness Instructor’s name is George. We were in an African performing arts group in the late ’90s together but I knew him by another name then.

I do believe that my steps are divinely ordered.  I believe this situation was tailor-made for me. When I first heard his name I did not run home to my bed. I don’t even think I recognized it as a past trigger.

Because he worked there his name was called out frequently. I would sometimes give George a ride home. On one occasion he asked me to take him to Walmart and then we would go to lunch, his treat. Well, the place “he” had chosen objectified women. I felt uncomfortable because of the staff’s attire. Most people’s bra and panties have more coverage than these young women were wearing.

He started going on about someone he knew really liked asses. I stopped him mid-story and told him that I did not objectify women. After that, I had to set some clear boundaries with George. The women at work say he was testing me. I stopped being chummy with him.

George had a stroke. Every day now his name is called out by people asking how he is doing. I am the person at the front desk. I am usually the one giving an update about his progress.

The George that raped me at five is dead to me now.

I have become desensitized to that name. Flashbacks, nightmares, and hypervigilance caused by George are a thing of the past.

This is what healing feels like.

The George that raped me at 5 was murdered in prison. I don’t know this to be true but my memory is that my Father got the word out that he had raped his little girl and they killed him.

Before therapy, he was still alive for me. I wanted to kill him so badly. I thought that it was unfair that he was dead. I was angry because I could not make him suffer.

As I write this I take deep breaths and release any residual energy still tied to that event in my life. I made it to the promised land of happiness.

Ding Dong George is Dead, Finally.

 ‘PTSD & me’

#FeelingSafeIsABasicNeed

someone walks into the room quietly and i jump
the startle reflex is the dominant symptom of the day
that was yesterday
today
i hyperventilate as i drive back home
i saw a man walking in the dark around our doors
I am triggered by this, i am tired, i have not slept
i am trying to put fear back on the shelf
understanding is far and i am just a complaint
my body hurts, i have struggled with chores
while trying to take care of my health
if i try to explain how i have felt
it is always and never
go back to your happy place self
the throw away is imminently dealt
the rejection, the judgment because i am myself
could i just not be me
i struggle with accepting me the way i are
i am scarred
i am scarred
i may even be broken but
most of the time i am just angry
about the battle days with fear
gripping me tight choking out safe light
i must fight to let it go
i must tell my mind that this is not then
and it is not happening again like before
so many befores’
so many befores’
sometimes they come rushing out the doors of my soul
in a second
a simple moment
i could lose control
i could stumble down the dark hole of ptsd
hypervigilance, easily startled, just fucking afraid of everything
it affects my breathing, my being
at least after therapy
i know what is happening to me
i can use my breath to regain free
i can breathe to release my body from this memory
my soul reminds me of who i am and the awesome power to live is me
in a single moment
i breath
shutting the door to the past
accepting me
even if no one else gets it
i still must love and live with myself
my superpower is the unconditional love that resides in me
fear is not really a factor
God lives in me
bring it on fear
i only need to breathe
to be free
by mozayik ‘the souls’ poet’
4.9.2019 716a

Healing Brings Good Memories

I know I have healed because I can remember the many great things I had as a child. I now have fond memories and they now cover up the bad memories. The good memories bring me joy, cause me to break out and smile while bringing happy tears to my eyes. A walk down memory lane is now filled with gratefulness. I don’t hesitate to walk down memory lane. It is a pleasant welcome experience. That is freedom.

I was raised by two great women my grandmother Mamie and my great grandmother Bertha. Cara my aunt also shared in raising. Tragically, I never saw them in a healthy relationship with men. However, I never heard them be mean to anyone. I did not overhear them plotting about revenge.
I saw them work together to accomplish goals like being homeowners. I saw them share with friends, family, and neighbors.

Healing has allowed me to see the glorious upbringing these women gave me. I am who I am because of them. I am kind-hearted because they were kind-hearted. I have a passion for helping people just like they taught me to be. I believe in order and setting boundaries like they taught me.
They also taught me to fight back, stand on my own two feet and don’t take no shit off nobody. Just as they taught me to pray and trust God. They also taught me to be ready to protect myself. I really saw no fear in them at all.

One man got rowdy with my grandmother when I was about eight or nine and she got her gun and run his ass out of the house. We never saw or heard from him again. I saw them have male friends but no live-in man. A man did not ever spend the night.
They worked and provided for themselves. I started working at eleven cleaning offices with my grandmother. They taught me by example and word that “If you don’t work, you don’t eat”.

They poured so much love into me. My great grandmother would hold me and rock me in her rocking chair while reading the bible to me. This has to be my fondest memory of her. I thank God that I can carry these memories with me in my heart every day. There is no more rain in this cloud. I found the silver lining. All the hard work has been worth it. #Healed

Mamie and Bertha in me

I honor the Mamie and Bertha in me

the image they continue to give me is one of possibility

these women stood tall, I never saw their backs break

a slight bend now and again

but never broken

I never saw them without what they needed

they showed me with hard work anything can be defeated

I am not afraid to break a sweat

so you have not even seen the best of me yet

I am like my Great Grandmother Bertha,

she walked through this world on her own terms

she paid the price to decide

when to prop up her feet and die to flesh

this is who I am

my grandmother Mamie  did the same thing

you would always her saying

I will  die before I lose my independence

and she left this world on her own terms

this is where I come from

backs do not break

we walk on through

our souls help us decide what to do

like their great, great, and great-granddaughter Melisa

even though they left her for dead

she has a mission

she will decide when it is time to go home

so I am going to be all right

this is where I come from

I have decided I have more work to do

more light to shine, more seeds to be sown before I go home

I am going to lay my burdens  down

at Mamie, Bertha, Cara, Annie,

Essie and Margie’s feet

they are already free

and they are waiting for me to finish up this work

and come home and be free

by mozayik “the souls’ poet”  3.11.13

 

brokenness

Because we are broken we choose broken people who help us to perpetuate the brokenness to a multigenerational level.  We have been socialized and conditioned to withstand breaking.  It has been our normal for so long that we don’t even question the breaking.  We see it everywhere.  It is a part of our history.  We were determined to not break or at least not show our brokenness.

It is my brokenness that has made me whole. The tears in my soul are sewn with the golden thread of Grace. Beautiful scars honor my journey. Breaking open has allowed my soul to evolve to unconditional love for myself.

 

 

 

 

love, sex, and abuse

I kept recreating the scenario where they would leave because I pushed them away and then I could cry victim that they left. I wanted them to come back and love me the way I deserved.

Childhood Emotional Neglect sent me a powerful, subliminal message that my feelings didn’t matter.

I kept looking for the unconditional love that only a mother could give. Now I know though that even mothers can’t give that kind of love sometimes. That is the biggest myth of motherhood. All mothers don’t love their babies because some don’t know how. Some mothers know but lack the resources and support. I was pregnant at 16. I married at 17. I escaped that marriage at 18 with three children. By 19 I was depressed, dealing with PTSD from childhood sexual abuse, neglect, and poverty. The only real support I had was my disabled grandmother.

We are designed to benefit from the experience of loving nurturing touch. If you don’t get that as a child, you will search everywhere to find it. I was sexualized and raped at 5, I believed sex was love.

I subconsciously chose situations that felt familiar to me. My toxic environment had shaped me. My mother’s violent relationships were what I was born into. The cycle was intrinsically wired into my brain. They would love each other one minute and the next they were fighting and then they would fuck. It was like that for her entire life.

Subconsciously this is all I knew about relationships. Studies have proven that the first 6 years of a child’s life is when they are the most impressionable. What children learn about the world during this time will be what is subconsciously their default. This is one reason I kept choosing the same people.

I was hoping for a different outcome with each lover but doing the same things I had been programmed to do over and over.

The marvelous thing about a brain is we can rewire it; we can create another default. That is what I am taking the time to do my next level of healing. I am not taking time to grieve over something that was not good for me. That is wasted energy. I see the issue and I understand the why, I know how to fix the issue.

Now my time will be spent being grateful for today. I survived. I have learned. There is some undoing that needs to be done but I am able.

I don’t need another project. No more goals will be set at this time. I just want to slow down and be with the love inside of me. I just want to sit and think about whatever pops into my head. I want to read the books I have on my TO Read LIST. I want to get lost in some sexy Fiction.

It is time for a reset. All my circuits will be busy just loving life and enjoying this big family that God gave to me. I have really accomplished a lot in my 50+ years on this earth. I measure my accomplishments by how many people’s lives have been affected in a positive way by anything I have shared about my healing journey.

As a little girl, I asked God to use me to help somebody so my living would not be in vain. It is time for Release.

survivor (when my own soul encouraged me)

you are a survivor girl
stand up and be strong
you’ve made it
through storms of  hard times

you’ve seen bad marriages
the letdowns of dreams
but you’re still here

so it seems you can’t make it
seems you can’t see your way
but you’ve made it this far girlfriend
you survived, through it all till this day

go ahead on and be strong.
you’re a survivor because
you’ve hung in there this long.

gone girl with your bad self
only you know what you can do.

just try it.
just believe in your self.

don’t wait for somebody
to tell you that you can make it through.
you know what you’ve got to do

reach deep down inside yourself and
pull out what has been there for so long
stand up and be strong.

girl whatever it took
to make it through a bad marriage
to a drug addict and wife beater

whatever it took to make it
through abuse and rejection

whatever it took when
you were put down

lied to and talked about

but you made it through
you held your head up high
and you kept on going

girl, you can do it
all you gotta do is
stand up and be strong

believe in your self

you are a survivor girl

go ahead on

to the next lover, she grew up

I know I am healing because in the past I would be on to the next lover. This time though, I am guarded. I should have always had a fence around my heart. It is healthy to safeguard everything about your person.

That is a good thing. I should be protecting my energy. That is self-love. I guess I have finally mothered the hurt little girl in me. I grew up in an environment where I was not protected. I had no clue about boundaries.

My grandmother allowed me to smoke cigarettes at eleven. I was home alone responsible for another child just 6 years younger than me. I was ‘the’ adult. I literally ran the house. I made the grocery list, went shopping, and cooked the food as well as cleaned up after meals. I paid the bills and balanced the checkbook. I did all these things every day from the age of 11. I behaved like a grown woman because I had grown woman responsibilities.

With therapy, I was able to understand that I had had no childhood. I was abandoned and left to my own defenses at a very early age.

Now that I know how to protect my body, mind and energy, and soul. I understand the behavior that was not serving me well in my adult life. As a child the behavior protected me.

I am still unlearning a lot of misinformation and dysfunction but at least I am not on to the next. I am confident in being able to love myself first. I am confident that although I still will have to deal with the fear of being alone, I am not alone. God is with me because God lives in me.

I am enough for me.

the goodbye poem

it is a sad commentary that our love would end like this

you may not feel anything or don’t even care

my heart is breaking cause

i know this time i don’t have any more love to give you

so you can throw it back in my face

discard me like gum on the bottom of your shoe

i have always been there for you

rescuing, rescuing and rescuing you over and over

only for you to discard, devalue me

i am stronger than your bullying

i know i have been a good woman to you

both of us know i don’t deserve for you

to shut down and treat me as if i am a bothering irritation

i don’t have any more

i hurt

i have hurt

i  give

i have given

been there and gave whatever was needed for our life

i wanted to be your wife

you said we would be together forever

i believed we could make it or else

i would not have come back

but your mistreatment has for the last time

driven me out of the door

all of your excuses don’t mean shit to me anymore

burned all my bridges running back and forth to you

but god got me

i will be alright

will you?

because you will miss me deeply

someone and i hate to say this but it is true,

will treat you worse than you did me

i don’t wish that for you

but you can’t miss the reaping you must do

i will pray for you

we could have ended better

we should have been better than this

why would i stay where i am not wanted

i don’t know how i am going to make it

but i know god knows that i deserve better

i hope better for you

but i am through

by mozayik ‘the souls’ poet’

Positive Funk

Positive Funk

is where you go to work on self
you can’t take anyone along
funky place in your spirit
filled with your own bittersweet song

you don’t mind staying funky for a while
cause you know there won’t be a crowd
they don’t understand you see
about this  funky place you be

but you very well comprehend
this positive funk you are in
this funk is a good funk
the kind that builds you up

you don’t smell this
you feel it
you welcome the enriching experience
don’t share  it
cause you couldn’t if you wanted to
it’s designed just for you

it’s too funky for your loved ones
so they just let you do what you gotta do
this funky place is fertile ground
where all the seeds of life are growing
you’ll find pride, greed and all the  negative emotions

but be patient cause positivity will soon be flowing
shortly you’ll see the love peace and contentment
that this place is grooming
when you come out you’ll be smelling like a rose

positive funk produces a unique kind of knowing
that after the thunder, lightning and stormy rains of life
things are clean and fresh smelling
after digging deep into the dirty issues of life
wallowing in the mud of pain and strife
looking at yourself and all your ugly ways

positive funk will produce
a brand new you on a whole new level
you’ll be aware of all the pitfalls
that took you to this stinking valley

this funk is positive because of the result
if you desire to be the best
you must look at your own funky shit
then I bet you’ll figure out what’s best for you

you’ll be renewed, refreshed
and have a new constitution
telling everybody it’s because of
positive funk your life had a revolution

by mozayik “the souls’ poet”