Thank You and F*ck You

To the Department of Social Services:

Thank you for intervening in our care,
but fuck you for ignoring all the
crystal clear signs of my incestuous trauma
and fuck you for disregarding and dismissing
the concerns brought to you about this.
Thank you for sending us to safe foster families
and fuck you for sometimes sending us back
to the abuse and neglect.
Thank you for putting us up for adoption,
but fuck you for scheduling weekly visits with my abuser.

The inactions on your part caused us so much harm.
Even after the adoption,
I spent my life feeling as though
I wasn’t allowed to have needs,
that it wasn’t safe to express myself.
Even though our current parents are safe,
I have spent my life unable to come to them
about my struggles….
To the point that
when I found myself in excruciating pain
in the middle of the night,
I could not bring myself
to wake my mother up.
I was more willing to risk death that night
than interrupt my mother’s precious sleep.

Thank you for saving us,
but fuck you for your incompetence.
Thank you for giving us a shot at a brighter future,
and fuck you for giving us all so many extra wounds to carry.

Thank You Letter to God

 Dear Mother, Father, God,

I just want to thank You for all of the wonderful things you have helped me manifest so far! With Your assistance, I was able to start and finish the Appalachian Trail and just 18 months after completing the AT, I co-created an 8 month trip to Europe with You. Thank You so much for these healing adventures!

Dear Mother, Father, God,
I also want to thank you for the perfect living situation with loving and supportive relationships. Thank You, God, for leading me to the most wonderful place in the world with the most wonderful people and PETS. I am so grateful You were able to find a place that was bright, spacious, friendly, and homey. Thank You so much for allowing me to create a place that caters to all of my physical, spiritual, and emotional needs, including those of my inner child. Dear Mother, Father, God, I thank you for sending the right people my way to help me manifest what is absolutely perfect. This place is quiet and respectful at night and yet boisterous and joyful each day and for that I am so grateful to you, God. This place feels safe and secure. This place feels welcoming and is exciting to return to after an extended time away. This place is full of amazing people who are lifting themselves and everyone around them. And for all of this I am grateful to You, God. Thank you, God, for providing me with a place in which everything is in working order and everyone pitches in. Thank You so much for fulfilling my inner child's lifelong desire to belong.
Yours truly,
Charlie

I Choose Change

I CHOOSE CHANGE!

In the Past,
there HAS BEEN a recurring theme
of being disrespected,
of being walked all over,
of having my basic needs denied by others.
BUT THIS SHALL BE NO MORE! FOR I CHOOSE CHANGE!

In the Past,
there have been times
when I felt that my needs
were discarded as inconveniences by others.
BUT THIS SHALL BE NO MORE! FOR I CHOOSE CHANGE!

In the Past,
I chose to shrink myself
and disregard my own needs
in order to accommodate others.
BUT THIS SHALL BE NO MORE! FOR I CHOOSE CHANGE!! 

I will instead embrace a future in which I am comfortable setting and maintaining boundaries regardless of how others respond to them. I will instead embrace a future in which I know myself to be deserving of respect and will surround myself with people who love, support, and respect me. I will embrace a future in which those who disrespect me will not hold power over me. For I will be so sure of who I am as the beloved child of God, that their actions or inactions will not faze me. I hereby disempower the behavior of others and instead step into my own power with both feet firmly planted. I CHOOSE CHANGE!

What Does That Make Me?

Distressed, devastated, and distraught. 

My father was the product of trauma...
So what does that make me?

Some people try to tell women, "not all men"
as if little girls are never raped by their own fathers,
as if the number of free roaming rapists is small,
and as if that counted for something.
If there was one rapist in the whole wide world,
that would be too many.

It took one man, several generations back,
to create the child molester my father became.

Imagine a little boy that was born into this world
with all this potential for love,
all this potential for joy, smiles, and laughter...
only to have that potential smothered by repeated traumas.

Imagine a little boy trying to survive
in the war zone that is his own family.
He learns that the world is made up of sharks and minnows...
and he learns that the only way to stay safe, to be "ok",
is to prove to everyone around you that you are a shark.
And to cope with his unhappiness,
he expunges the happiness of others.

You see, due to this,
the good in him
never had a chance to be expressed...
The God in him
never had a chance to be expressed.

Now this little boy grows up
to have a family of his own...
and acts like his father, the shark,
terrorizing his wife and kids.

And when his first born daughter
is just shy of her third birthday,
he rapes and sodomizes her.

Now this little girl carries his pain
and his shame
in her body, mind, and soul...
and that little girl was me.

Distressed, devastated, and distraught.

My father was the product of trauma...
so what does that make me?

I RELEASE MY FATHER AND MYSELF FROM THIS STORY!

Be the God That You Are

The world has taught me that I am a small and insignificant being.
The world has taught me that my wants and needs
are not as important as the wants and needs of others.
The world has filled my head with the idea
that no one could love me
and that those who did were just an exception to the rule.
But my soul has found its voice and responds,
"Let go of the script and be the God that you are."

I have been taught that the world is too dangerous a place for me.
I have been taught that no one is to be trusted.
The world has convinced me that I must remain
unseen and unheard in order to stay safe.
But my soul has found its voice and responds,
"Let go of the story and be the God that you are."

I have felt powerless against the rising tides of grief.
I have felt overwhelmed by the unrepentant current of raging rivers.
I have felt impossibly small and terribly lost
in the vast and timeless dark night of the soul.
But my soul has found its voice and reminds me,
"Let go of the mask and be the God that you are.
Let go of the mask and be the God that you are."

Letting Go of the Legacy of Pain

My biological father may have hurt me,
May have violated me,
But he was an innocent child once;
A child who was also hurt and violated.
An innocent child who,
Went through so much trauma,
That the good in him
Never had a chance to be expressed:
The God in him
Never had a chance to be expressed.
After years of abuse,
His world became black and white,
Not in the sense of good and bad
But black and white in the sense
Of victim and victimizer.
He felt that his only recourse
Was to beat or be beaten,
To strike or be struck.
He felt so powerless within himself
That the only way to feel powerful
Was to harm the harmless.
My biological father violated me
Because of his own self-hatred
And deep fear of the world.
Yes, my father hurt me,
But his own pain must have been unimaginable
For him to do something so unconscionable. 
For this reason,
And to grant myself peace,
I choose right now,
To let go
Of his legacy of pain.

Advice from Dreamland

Today I want to share the advice I got from my dreams last night:

-Feel all your feelings and when you remember what we have always known *, talk it out in group therapy. (*About your worth, about the love you carry, about the divine being you've always been, etc.) -You can mourn the version of you that never was*, but do not dwell on her. (*the untraumatized version) There was never going to be a different version of you. -This terribly challenging life was chosen by your soul for a terribly good reason and this says a lot more about the essence of your soul than the trauma you survived. And the soul's essence carries more importance than the human ego. -This version of you is miraculous.