Sanctuaries Dreams and Shadows

"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us." Joseph Campbell

I.
Words have been few and hard to come by recently, but tears have been abundant. I have discovered that letting go is not a simple matter of moving on...going forward...today becoming tomorrow...one foot in front of the other...or one day at a time. Before I knew it, a year had passed, then two, three....time faded into thin air. So many yesterdays are gone, yet my heart still bleeds, refusing to know what my mind now concedes.

Questions from decades past that have become interwoven into the fabric of my DNA, the stirrings of my soul, will remain unanswered. The ever haunting echo has finally broken through the encrustation that has surrounded my calcified heart for so long, and will be silent no more. No longer can I refuse to hear, to see what has always been true, what I have always known..somewhere.

But how does one let go of a lifetime when it is tied to one's soul? Like a balloon, it's string once tightly clasped in a trusted hand, now forgotten, let loose to drift away - unheeded - to become just a memory. Where does it go? Will the bleeding ever stop?

II.

Having spent so many years in a relationship,
Having invested so much of yourself and your treasure,
Having loved ones you don't want to cause pain to,
Wanting so badly to believe, to succeed, and to not be alone,
One comes to accept however little is given in return
as if
it were
enough.

Choosing to live in denial rather than truly see
One rises every morning to put on
the false belief that
everything
is
okay
Because to admit otherwise
would be
like
death.

Sanctuaries Dreams and Shadows. Please pay Maureen a visit and leave her a comment if you can, to let her know that you stopped by.

When my bark is as bad as my bite!

I have struggled with un diagnosed PTS for most of my life and you can't heal what you don't know, understand, and accept. When I was a little girl and my mother was married to a really awful man I went through hell. They weren't married for long, but the damage he did took a life time for my mother, my brother and I to recover from... and I don't think we ever did. My brother went into denial in a way but perhaps he didn't remember much because he spent a lot of time away in boarding school and during the holidays he was with my cousins on a farm in Zimbabwe. But, I do think that what little memory he may have, he pushes those memories down deep down into his subconscious.

My memories on the other hand are vivid. He made my mothers life a living hell and at 6 years of age, I went where my mother went at all times of the day or night. We often seemed to be running away from him. This man caused me personally, so much fear that I had night mares for years, during and after the relationship he had with my mother.

He was charming always seemed to be smiling when people were around and he was life and soul of the party, but not to us. When we were alone with him, he was an angry, shouting, accusing evil man. He drank a lot and beat my mother regularly. His behavior with me was also highly inappropriate. I really hated him. I remember for almost two years having night mares. I would wake up crying and screaming but I was always affraid to wake my mother up... because it would mean seeing him.
I used to lay in bed for hours with my blankets over my head and I could hear myself breathing deeply. It was hell. I couldn't focus at school had very few friends and it was a lonely time for me. We didn't rush off to therapists in those days so I just learned to live my life with all the anxiety that went with it.

My mother divorced him after only 2 years but the damage was done. The impact of that man in our lives affected my mother and I for many many years. Several years later my mother married another idiot who was the same personality type as the previous one, and the roller coaster, of heart ache started all over again. I wasn't living at home by that time, thank goodness, but I saw what my mother went through.

Yes.... you guessed it... I went on to make the same choices my mother had. I don't want to go into why that happens, because it does... over and over again... the children make the same bad choices their parents made. What I do want to mention here is the TRAUMA that we all go through at the hands of these abusive men.

In the past 6 years I have worked hard to heal my own life and that of my children, but as the layers are peeled back from years and years of abuse, so the pain becomes worse and worse, which is why so many people resort to substance abuse to escape the pain.... but trust me... it soon catches up. I am thankful that alcohol and drugs have not been my choice of escape route... but I do have my own addictions.... art funnily enough. Now that sounds fine and dandy... art! but the impact is much the same. I become isolated, live in fear and deny all the pain that has been burried for so long. I just paint and paint somemore.

I don't think we are meant to live with pain in any shape or form. I am busy dealing with mine head on at the moment.... and my instincts make me want to close the door and stay away from people, but I know that if I am ever going to be free... I have to TRUST and that's the hardest part of all.

I know who I am in the deepest part of me... a very kind and gentle person... and when I growl and snap something inside is hurting. I have only bitten a few times in my life... and I live with that regret. The recipients have mostly been my children... who I love with all my heart and soul... but they did get the bites which should have been targeted at the perpetrators of all my pain and not them....! I know where I make mistakes and I try hard to make things right... but sometimes when people have been bitten... they don't come too close in the future.

I am always a work in progress, willing to appologise when I have been wrong, but why do people find it so hard to say... I AM SORRY I HURT YOU.

If we all knew at the end of our lives what was important and what wasn't, who is important and who isn't..... perhaps we would be kinder to one another.

My struggle has always been, not to bark and certainly not to bite, so I was only kidding when I said my bite is as bad as my bark, but I knew it would get your attention.

A survivor story.

I wanted to do some art work to reflect some of the things I am feeling right now and while I was searching on the internet for art work done by other survivors I found this website which I wanted to share with you all http://violenceunsilenced.com/michelle-johnson-major/

Pattern of abuse

Double click on this picture if you are unable to read the content. If you are reading this blog then you have questions? Please go through all these points and be honest... is this you? If it is, or if it is someone that you know... you have to get some help. Being the victim of domestic violence is the most painful experience I have ever had and I wish that I had known more when I was younger, but we didn't have so many self help books, Dr. Phil and Oprah. We didn't have the internet and there really was no one to talk to, but that is not the case anymore, there is lots of help available for those who really want to end the violence.

I am fully aware that my opinions may be controversial, but I have been through two abusive marriages for a total of 25 years, I learned a lot! One thing I want to say at the outset and that is that victims need to realise that they are part of the abuse, it takes two. I am not saying you deserve it, but what I am saying is that as long as you stay, you are accepting it.

I had a thought today and that was that if a drug addict, or alcoholic, addicted gambler or someone with an eating disorder, went to their local police station with a complaint like this....

I am here to file a complaint. I want to get a protection order against the drug dealer where I get my drugs, or close down the bottle store where I buy my alcohol, or I want you to close down the casino near where I live, or close down all the cake shops.... what would the reaction be... it is too ludicrous to even contemplate. As long as there are people buying pornography those who participate in the act will continue.

Yes I know you are going to say... what is your point? Are you saying that the abuse is my fault? No what I am saying is that you are choosing to stay in the abuse. As long as an abuser has someone to abuse, he will continue. With all the above examples, those things start out being fun, eating drinking and being merry. People take drugs because it starts out feeling good. We as victims of domestic violence stay for the good times which become few and far between.

Until you say... enough and  NO MORE you will always be a victim.

I know from my own experience that leaving can be the easy part, surviving and staying away is the hard part. Each time he comes back saying sorry, we open the door again to more abuse. I have met an spoken to many people in 50 years, I have never yet heard anyone say to me... my husband or boyfriend used to be abusive but he stopped. Oh sorry I do know one, but then when he stopped beating his wife, he escalated the emotional abuse.

A man who abuses women has never learned how to treat a women with respect and he is unlikely to seek help because it is your fault remember!

I speak of him, or he throughout what I will be sharing, but that doesn't mean that women don't abuse men. I will be speaking about ways that women abuse men in the future.

SHE by Matthew

Title: She

She was a strong,
black,
loveless woman.
She said,
"He doesn't love me no more.
He doesn't hold me down or beat me against the concrete floor,
doesn't hit me with concrete thoughts as he slams the bedroom door.
He doesn't deliver fists as gifts that fit my tits nor feeds the kids
with love from lips,
nor takes my hints not to brake my ribs,
he's got skills but kills my emotions when he breathes from gills,
HE doesn't love me no more."

She was the type who bragged to friends
about his jealousy, his strength and the power in his hands.
Yet the same hands transformed into fists,
fists that tore her body into bits,
bits that disfigured her body kits.
His hands transformed into fists that beat, bruised, abused and used
her face as a comfort zone.
His hands... landed on her ribcage,
but she wasn't on the same page.
So his rage landed on her ribcage,
told her her friends, "This is love,"
but her friends weren't on the same page.
"Dump the bastard he's got rage,
like an animal he belongs inside of a cage."
"No, no, no," she said.
"He's my man and...
without him I'd go mad and..
he didn't get love from an early age."
Her excuses made him and exclusive explosive in her existence,
but her persistence will ensure that woman like her face exstinction.

You see, if beating a woman was a test,
this man had passed it with distinction.

Every night neighbors had front row seats,
if they missed it today, tomorrow the movie repeats.
This piece depicts,
how on a daily basis a womans life depletes,
how the cycle of her life becomes complete.

See, she grew up in a society where heart attacks
were a result of a very fat attack
caused by ignorance of bioslim.
A society where woman believed a knife should be used for cutting,
buttering and terminating unborn life.
I prayed that this type of woman would never be my wife,
but had Eve aborted...
maybe, just maybe,
the Cain's in us wouldn't have survived.
He doesn't love her no more...

                                                    DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IS UGLY

Do you care.

In just a single day my life changed

his eyes were so blue

his smile was so genuine

he said he loved me

we laughed a lot and had so much in common

or so I thought

beyond tomorrow there was hope

he made me believe that love was real

that passion is out there for everyone who looks for it

he promised the world and didn’t deliver

Do you care?

My heart was open and willing

to try and trust again

it was broken once before

they say forgive and move on

and I did a thousand times

this time I wouldn’t hold back

I would give him all I had

and hope and pray

that honesty and openness pays

and he would care

enough to do the same

he didn’t

Do you care

He lied

he betrayed

he gave others

all that he promised me

he angered and raged accused and withheld

he beat,  kicked  swore and punished

he controlled

he gave gifts to show he loved and cared

and took them all away whenever he chose

Do you care

He said I was his soul mate

he made love to me

with passion and intensity

he did that with other women to

he told them I was crazy

that he wanted to leave

and I wanted to stay

he forgets that he did to

we danced

a macabre dance

but we danced

we loved and laughed and cried

he lied

Do you care

It was over and I cried

my heart was broken

shattered into tiny pieces

there was no sleep

there was no tomorrow

nightmares torment pain and anguish

memories that haunted day and night

good and bad

they said move on with your life

forgive him

but the trust was gone

I couldn’t he could

he promised her the same

Do you care

The years have passed

he surrounds himself with people

who all believe the lies

he doesn’t cry

there is no shame or remorse

of course he doesn’t care

the children saw the pain

the screaming accusations

they said nothing

and died inside

they kept their secrets

from their friends

and lived in fear

now they are torn between

what’s right and wrong

who is good and who is bad

will they choose the same

will they find real love

with trust and understanding

kindness and compassion

or choose to fight and kick and punch

or lie betray and say I love you

who the hell cares