Not Expecting a Better Outcome Than Farewell

    I love you too much to let you stay. I wanted you to choose yourself over my

dysfunctional roller-coaster. I made sure to share both where I am beginning to

grow and the uncomfortable, convoluted complexities of this disorderly brain.

Please know that I didn't (and still don't) want you to hold space for my

dysfunctional drama anymore. Please know that I love you so much that I am, and

have been, willing to let you go. My last few links were chosen with purpose. I wish I

could have found the words to express my struggles sooner...to discover the other

root cause sooner. If I had, I would have told you all of this immediately and then

stayed miles away.

I love you so much that I truly wanted you to walk away. Learning that self-hatred

could hurt someone other than me has helped me in unexpected ways.

But I wish I hadn't needed to learn that the hard way. I'm so glad you chose to get

off the roller-coaster regardless of the heartbreak. 


I tried so hard to express the true nature of my mental health, but nothing I said
helped it to click inside someone else's head...not until now.

Further Processing

    Someone I love couldn't see my truth soon enough. Someone I love assured me will-power would be enough. Someone I love remained blind to my inner world...remained deaf to my fears. Primarily the fear I had of my own mind...primarily the fear I had of my own emotions. This ignorance hurt us both.
    The reassurances were numerous enough for me to eventually chose to believe in my powerful will-power.* By becoming entranced by this falsehood, all the things I had already found in my subconscious returned there. By believing I was healed enough for will-power to be enough, I lost my true orientation. My brain was not yet capable of applying any long-term discipline. My tumultuous, all-consuming emotions were still inescapable.
    The fuse had been lit every time the truth of my inner world was minimized. The fuse had been lit by all those times I didn't feel seen. I tried to do the right thing. I tried to speak my truth the right way. But...without even knowing it, we weren't speaking the same language.
    Those erasures echoed the time I was silenced, the time when my trauma was ignored or minimized or...or whatever. The grenade was lit several times before it could not contain the explosion. And for that I am deeply sorry.

*I knew I was lying to myself, but I pushed that truth down too.

How the Bridge Burned

I have come to accept that my inner child did not know how to tell someone that she was hurting and that the pain was caused by this person's inability to accurately perceive the picture I was painting. I eventually lied to myself by agreeing all I needed was willpower. But I was simply applying willpower to the continued suppression of shame and guilt. Now that I've labeled that picture I painted, I can (and have been) appropriately using my willpower to keep in mind that my own self-hatred harmed someone else. This lesson has ironically helped me to begin acquiring the skills of self-forgiveness, self-compassion, and self-love...just by the simple fact that self-love is necessary in order to be emotionally safe for others.

Apparently, I had to get a brutal wake-up call...apparently I had to unintentionally hurt someone else. 

I'm sorry my emotional overwhelm became destructive. I'm sorry I couldn't make my truth understood so much sooner. I'm sorry for losing control. I'm sorry that I allowed my inner child to burn bridges. I was tired of feeling pain. I was tired of it coming from a loved one who was blind to my inner world no matter how hard I tried to make myself understood. I tried...I tried a lot...I tried hard to be understood. And when I kept failing...I lied to myself. I lied to myself and a part of me thought that doing so would "keep the peace". 

I can forgive myself. I can give myself grace. I can give myself compassion. So at long last, I no longer need to seek these from you or anyone. I have only love for you.

Now that you've seen me self-destruct, can you see why I am/have been afraid of my emotions? 

I told you a few times that when my emotions are intense enough, any and all good decisions are erased from my mind. I know you thought you understood me, but apparently I was trying to explain the taste of lemons to someone who has only ever had lemonade. I'm sorry I found clearer language far too late.

How the Steep Cost of Shame Pushed Me to Embrace Self-Love

Shame exists in people who cannot see themselves as good people and I'd guess most of us are either still stuck in it or has experienced episodes of shame at some point. I have been stuck in shame my whole life; I always felt like I was a bad person and that I deserved to never be free. But recently, my eyes have been opened in a way they have never been before. I recently witnessed my deep-seated shame dramatically end a relationship. By being unable to forgive myself for a prior more minor mistake, I projected the unforgiveness onto a person who had already let go of the matter. Obviously, he didn't directly tell me I was forgiven or else that prolonged uncertainty would not have caused me so much distress.
Until recently, I thought I had to stay locked in a prison cell made of shame and guilt in order to properly show remorse, to show that I'm sorry. But in the end, that prison I thought I deserved actually ignited another moment of self-destruction. A part of me wanted to say, "See?!? I told you I was unlovable." But after dealing with the steep cost of shame driven self-destruction, I learned that shame could not make me a better person. It actually made me toxic. This incident taught me that you cannot become a good person until you learn to see yourself that way.

Standing in the Remembrance of My Sovereignty

Arch Angel Michael, I call upon you now.
Please cut ALL the energy cords,
ALL the mental cords, and
ALL the emotional cords
that have been attached to this person,
this predicament,
as well as the attachment
to a specific outcome.

Arch Angel Michael,
please cut the cords of knotted emotion
that have surfaced due to my mistakes.
Please cut away any and all attachments
to the old narrative,
the old patterning of
imprisoning myself within
the confines of guilt...
and the coffin of shame.

I am, and have always been,
as innocent as a child learning to walk.
While I have remorse for the harm I caused,
I can't help but acknowledge that this...
this is how I have been treating myself for years.
No, I am not admitting this
to sound underhanded,
but to validate all my feelings equally...
because shame is a burden
that I can no longer carry.

I have nothing
but love for you,
but fear won me over.

And today, I cocreate
and claim a reality where
I no longer need anyone's validation...
I cocreate and claim a life where
I no longer need anyone
to understand my reality
or see my truth.
For today, I acknowledge that
I am capable of validating my
own experience,
of validating my feelings
and my truth.

I release this entanglement...
this enmeshment here, now, and forever.
I release the insane contract I unfairly constructed
for you to "follow."
I release you with tremendous love
for my big heart is still very real.
To honor you properly
I will strive to use this
as a lesson I can grow from.
I release you with tremendous love,
here, now, and forever.

As I step into my new life,
I acknowledge that my power,
my sovereignty,
and my innocence...
they are completely intact
for they were never truly threatened.

Shame no longer serves me,
so I release it with tremendous love
here, now, and forever.
Guilt no longer serves me,
so I release it with tremendous love
here, now, and forever.
The victim mentality no longer serves me,
so I release it with tremendous love
here, now, and forever.

As I validate my truth
and release ALL
that no longer serves me,
I step into my power,
the power of remembrance.
I step into,
not only a life of service,
but a life that serves me
now that I know myself
to be fully deserving
of all things good,
of heaven here on earth.

As I validate my truth
and release ALL
that no longer serves me,
I shall stand firmly rooted in self-love...
I shall become capable
of offering unflinching,
unconditional
loving compassion
for absolutely everyone...
for everyone
including myself.

BPD For Me

BPD, for me, means I never figured out how anyone could love me. It means doubting the intentions of others no matter how long I've known them. BPD, for me, is my inner wounded child taking the wheel and sabotaging everything... and somehow not realizing it until I return to a more regulated state. BPD, for me, is fearing unconditional love because I habitually, if subconsciously keep looking for a list of conditions to perform for others. Not finding this list actually ignites distress. BPD, for me, looks like not understanding boundaries most of the time... I love intensely but often offer it in a distorted way. I know I'm loved but rarely feel loved. BPD, for me, looks like being fatally optimistic...every time I entered a state of pure euphoria I'd assume that level of unfettered joy was a sign...was proof of untethered flight...proof that I had healed enough to fly. BPD, for me, means I have always had a distorted sense of self...which caused some relationships to become distorted. It means that most of the time I don't know what I want. BPD, for me, looks like dysregulation that often starts too subtly to notice... BPD, for me, is dysregulation sometimes disguised as euphoria... It looks like dysregulation sometimes disguised as groundedness followed by me careening down the rabbit-hole of delusions of lovelessness. And lastly, BPD, for me, feels like being puppeteered into the worst cases of self-sabotage.

A Perspective That Allows for (Self-)Compassion

        First off, this is not meant to be accusatory nor an excuse. It was always my responsibility to honor my truth and to seek appropriate treatments for my struggle(s) with mental health. Secondly, I am writing this more to give myself grace than to ask for grace from others. Although, I do hope it helps create a cleaner break should you decide we part ways.
        Discovering the likelihood that I have BPD has led me to second guess my feelings and my interpretation of everything, which is good. I should have been more willing to question my perspective. With that in mind, a part of me feels as though I loved you enough to allow your opinion* to replace my truth. 
        Society, all too often, focuses on 1 proverbial taproot and ignores the other one by looking at the question: "What do you get from this behavior?" I feel that this over-simplifies my battle by making it a matter of will-power. This question makes my fight out to be something it wasn't...it makes it out to be easy. When I finally agreed** that the fight was an easy one, I dropped my guard all the way down and my unhealthy brain was given free reign.
       I was never seeking attention. I was seeking connection in an unbalanced way. I felt a profound need to re-establish or re-solidify the belief that I was loved and cared for and to do so far too frequently. This was directly related to the conviction I held of my unlovability. Attempting to believe in my deservingness of unconditional love feels like trying to believe in Santa Clause again.
        Attempting to keep the pain (of remorse) a secret caused a great deal of cognitive dissonance/dysregulation which has erased my short term memory at times. Cognitive dissonance can cause dysregulation which can then trigger an age regression. At no point could my will-power kick in because my pre-frontal cortex is still under-developed. At no point could my will-power kick in because it did not yet have the necessary scaffolding, something I can gain through Dialectical Behavior Therapy.
       

*about the status of my mental health & my supposed ability to override the brain injury that CPTSD truly is. And I can...in time. But first I had to acknowledge it and name it.

**I agreed because I desperately wanted the resolution to be easy. I wanted it to just be about will-power.

Rise As the Phoenix 2.0

If you are like me,
you have often wondered
why you have suffered so.
If you are like me
you have often wondered
how you are going to make it
through the impenetrable darkness.
And if you are like me,
you have often wondered
"why am I here" and 
"what is the meaning of my life?"

Our task is to give meaning
to our own suffering
to let our hardships direct us
in ways to love one another.

Our task is to rise out of the ashes of our suffering
with the realization that we are the Phoenix
who dies and is reborn in the same fire
and then to share that discovery with the rest of humanity.

But just like any new-born
we must be patient with ourselves
as we rediscover who we are
after surviving the all consuming flame.
We have to be patient with ourselves
as our wings grow in strength...
as our wings replace their downy fluff
with feathers built for flight.

And in the meantime we must maintain our faith
that we will learn to fly again.
That though we feel small,
weak, and vulnerable after hardships
those feelings won't stay with us forever
as long as we set that intention.

With that I declare, "Let me wake up from the darkness,
let me open my eyes to the light that never left my side."
I shall rise out of the Hell-fires, I shall rise out of the ashes,
a bird of fire.
A bird of fire reaching out to sibling Phoenix scattered everywhere.
Light bringers, let's bring the dawn. Let's chase away the darkness...
or more accurately, let's wake up the darkness.

When Love Outweighs the Weight of the World

When the love within outweighs fear,
we can take loving actions despite the fear
and open the doorway to healing.

When the love within outweighs anger
we can take loving actions despite the anger
and open the doorway to grace.

When love outweighs the weight of the world,
we will know how to take loving actions.
We will know how to support the world in its healing.

When the love within outweighs despair
we will know how to take loving actions despite the despair
and open the doorway to hopefulness.

When the love within outweighs shame
we will know how to take loving actions despite the shame
and open the doorway to self-love.

When love outweighs the weight of the world,
we will know how to take loving actions.
We will know how to support the world in its healing.

Nobody Told Me I'd Be the Crazy One

Nobody told me I'd be the crazy one.
No...seriously you guys, I never
knew that I would
become so crazy in this incarnation.
No one warned me that I'd experience enough 
developmental trauma that
I'd end up with C-PTSD, BPD, PMDD...
you know all the good stuff...
Anywho...just wanted to start this
post with a little pre-emptive comic relief...
Not that there is a need for 
adding a Trigger Warning for this share.
It just about growing up in a world where
no one could relate to me and
where I struggled to relate to others.


Thirty-four years ago,
I was born into a war-zone.
And when I got adopted
and left this war-zone
six and a half years later,
my nervous system never got the memo
and remained hypervigilant.
I remained incapable of trusting anyone.

Nobody told me I'd be the crazy one.

It was in elementary school that
I became ashamed of the fact
that I was the only kid to cry in class
and to do so over tiny things.

Nobody told me I'd be the crazy one.

Throughout my childhood I felt
perpetually misunderstood;
I felt like an alien and
always wondered what it would be like
to be the consciousness
behind someone else's eyes.
It bugged me that I could not explore
the world as anyone other than me.

Nobody told me I'd be the crazy one.

I grew up believing that
if anything bad happened,
it'd be my fault,
and anything that went right
would have nothing to do with me.

Nobody told me I'd be the crazy one.

It was in middle school that I developed
the version of OCD that involved
pulling my hair out.
I would know what I was doing
but I guess the self-soothing effect
outweighed my desire to stop.

Nobody told me I'd be the crazy one.

It was in high school I learned
that I was afraid of 'yes' or 'no' questions,
and would sometimes say,
"It doesn't matter,"
in response.

Nobody told me I'd be the crazy one.

I'm in my thirties now and
have only just recently
discovered that two fears
are running my life.
I fear I am unlovable and
I am afraid...
afraid of unconditional love...
and these fears left me stranded
within an illusion.

Nobody told me I'd be the crazy one.

I've been perpetually seeking
the "conditions" I must meet
in order for another being to love me.
I've learned that I am 
capable of mistaking
my inner child's survival
instincts for intuition
and that this error in judgment
can ruin relationships.

Nobody told me I'd be the crazy one.

I blew up my life recently.
My inner child took the wheel
and began sabotaging everything
without the inner parent even noticing.
Maybe the inner parent wasn't even there.

Nobody told me I'd be the crazy one.

Looking back,
I can see the pattern
so clearly.
I have habitually hyper-fixated on
my mistakes and would imprison myself
behind thicker and thicker walls of
guilt and shame.
I've learned,
at long last, that
when we over-identify with
our falls, we will
never learn to fly.

Guilt and shame are
unnecessary chains...
even though we tend to 
believe that we
are imprisoning ourselves
for the sake of
those we have wronged.
I learned that
shame and guilt
aren't things that
can make me a good person.

I Give Thanks Anyway

 I Give Thanks Anyway

My father ripped my roots apart before

I had even been planted

and then he tried to bury me in his hopelessness...

but I give thanks anyway.

My father planted shame within my heart,

causing me to forget my innocence...

but I give thanks anyway.

I give thanks because his actions required me to become light,

they required me to become strong.

I give thanks because his actions required me to rebuild myself in my own image,

for they set me on a never-ending scavenger hunt for all the missing beautiful parts of me.

I thank my father for teaching me how to rebuild my roots.

I thank my father for teaching me the importance of self-love.

I thank him for teaching me how to rebuild my sense of self.

I thank him for teaching me how to rebuild a faulty foundation

by cultivating self-trust, by cultivating faith,

by leaning on the power of the Universe.

I thank him for requiring me to seek an unconditionally loving parent in a God I had ceased to believe in.

I thank him for requiring me to earnestly seek my own inner strength, my own inner light.

I thank him for requiring me to find my own path to wholeness,

to innocence,

to profound peace

by seeking and reclaiming all the missing beautiful parts of me.

I express deep gratitude for his soul's choice to spend a lifetime in chains in order to teach me how to break free...

and how to become unbreakable.
The foundation I rebuild will be immune to earthquakes.

The faith I rebuild will be immune chaos, immune to entropy.

The form of self-love I cultivate will no longer believe in the value of people-pleasing,
will no longer believe in the value of an inferiority complex. 

I will have an unshakeable sense of self after reclaiming all the missing, beautiful parts of me.

I had to become the fire that kept me warm.

I had to become the light to see where my feet met the path.

I had to become the peace that could comfort my heart.

I had to become the love that could replenish my peace.

I had to become the grace that could save my soul.

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.

A Chapel Without Walls

This is a story about a family of wounded hearts,

but mostly it’s a story about a man…

a man with a vision…

a vision of a chapel without walls.

Some of us came here with bruised hearts and battered souls.

Some of us came here at the end of our rope, when we had lost all hope.

Some of us came in search of meaning, in search of belonging.

And this man, this being of light, tended to our battle worn souls with

words that soothed:

“Just breathe”;

with words that comforted:

“you are loved”;

with words that transfused our souls with faith and hope:

“there is a purpose for you in this world, for we are all ministers of God.”

This man has given us a chance to shine in the spotlight,

has given us a platform to have our words heard.

This man sees the light within us all

even when we have trouble seeing it ourselves.

This is a story about a family of weary souls,

but mostly, it’s about a man who had the hands

to build this chapel without walls.

This has become your chapel without walls which rebuilds broken hearts

and tends to wounded souls.

Your chapel without walls has brought love to hearts fraught with

loneliness.

Your chapel without walls has brought peace to souls fraught with fear.

Your chapel without walls has brought love to hearts fraught with grief.

Your chapel without walls has brought sanctuary to those wounded by

life’s hard knocks.

You, Rev. Dr. Jim,

gave this community of wounded warriors

a safe place to walk each other home,

and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

You, Rev. Dr. Jim,

gave this community of battle worn souls

a blessed and holy sanctuary of light,

and we thank you, we thank you, we thank you.

I Didn't Know I Was Loved

Thanks to my trauma,
I didn't know I was loved.
I had always felt more like
the gum removed from someone's shoe....
since I let people walk all over me.
I felt like a tissue that's been sneezed in
that no one wants to touch.

I didn't know I was loved.
I had always felt unwanted and in the way.
But now I know the truth.
Now I feel the truth. 
I can truly feel the love
others have for me now
in a way that was impossible before.

I had felt as though no one could love me
as a person with such a complicated history
and when people would remind me they loved me,
I'd struggle to believe them.
Not because I saw them as liars
in any sense of the word,
but because my ego could not see me
as deserving of even an ounce of it.

And now a major barrier has been lifted
and I can sense and feel the profound love
that others have professed to me.
I now believe them and can experience
the joy and ecstasy that comes from
one's awareness of and acceptance of love.