In '92 a Baby Girl Brought Heaven to the World

     When my daughter was born, it was one of the happiest days of my life.  She was my rainbow baby, born following an early miscarriage the year before.  Hers was an easy, uneventful pregnancy.  I found joy in how my body changed in order to give her exactly what she needed.  I had so much fun shopping for all her frilly, little baby dresses and headbands. I was so excited for her to arrive, to have something totally dependent on me.  But come delivery time, she wasn't at all interested in being born.  She was 10 days late, but more than content to stay where she was.  I could just picture her grabbing onto whatever she could hold onto!  After a 29-hour labor, she finally made her appearance. All 7lbs 11oz and 21 inches of her, with so much hair that people thought she was wearing a wig (I know, people are weird!).

     From the day Ellysa was born I knew I would do whatever was in my power to always protect her.  I would raise her in a "normal" family where she would always feel loved and safe.  No one would do to her what had been done to me.

     I endured severe trauma in my early childhood (birth - 4 years), the effects of which I am only just beginning to understand.  It destroyed my trust, and damaged my ability to form emotional attachments.  Affection became a scary thing for me.  People were unsafe, even the people in your own family.

     When  my younger sister and I entered foster care, we were placed with an extremely affectionate family.  We were hugged, and held, and kissed.  Our parents hugged and kissed in front of us.  Even today, our family greets each other with a hug and a kiss.  It's still really hard for me.  It doesn't come naturally.  

     At some point, I fell into the routine.  The kisses before bedtime.  The hugging of pretty much every person I knew, whether it was family, extended family or church.  It's what was expected, so it was what I did.  I never really felt like I had a choice.  My body was still not my own.  I wasn't allowed to refuse, even when it made me quite uncomfortable.  (I'll save that for another post.) 

          During that time I really harbored a general dislike of men.  I didn't link that to the events of my early childhood because I just didn't understand it then.  I had snippets of memory, but it was all so compartmentalized.  I didn't allow the memories of abuse into my conscious thoughts.  It was too scary, too painful.  Still, I understood that babies needed affection and touch in order to develop, so I set out to do something that was unnatural to me.  It came easier than I thought.  She was so peaceful and looked like a baby doll.  I loved to hold her, to look at her, to dress her up.  Olan Mills (I'm really aging myself) made a lot of money off of us.

     All the while I was coddling Ellysa, I was teaching her what I knew about the world.  Both good and bad.  I taught her that men were scary and the world wasn't to be trusted.  I taught her that her body was hers and no one-- even her grandparents-- could not force her into hugs or kisses if she felt uncomfortable.  That ruffled feathers.  I taught her to always be aware of her environment.  Don't go places alone, and if she did to exude all the confidence she could muster.  Don't be distracted by her phone when she was walking through a store or a parking lot.

     I thought I was helping her, preparing her to protect herself.  Instead, I was scaring her.  Creating fear, increasing anxiety.  I thought I was teaching her that I would always be her protector, all she had to do was tell me.  Instead, she heard that if she wasn't like me she was weak.

     When Ellysa was 17 she left for Youth With A Mission.  Our family had been seriously harmed by an abusive pastor.  Fleeing the state was her way of dealing with that pain.  We drove her from Pennsylvania to Texas to drop her off.  I didn't realize that she wouldn't live at home again for several years.

     Following her time in YWAM, she moved to North Carolina to live with her roommate.  She was young, naive and far from home.  My ability to protect her was so limited.  I could only hope she was being safe.  Sadly, her roommate became involved with drugs.  She ransacked Ellysa's room and mail. Living with her became a scary thing.  When I visited, the roommate was conveniently never there, so I wasn't able to size her up, to have a clear picture of what Ellysa was dealing with.  I didn't have a way to help.  I would have liked for my daughter to move home.  She wanted to prove that she could make it on her own.

     During this time Ellysa met Mike.  We loved him!  He cooked. He was into computers.  He looked like Ryan Reynolds!  We spent time with him while we visited, and he was always charming and polite.  Behind the curtain, however, he was destroying her credit, emotionally controlling and sexually assaulting her. I still don't know all that happened, but I don't need to know.  I can't be mad at her for "letting it happen", when Mike was able to bypass MY radar systems, too.

     Eventually Ellysa called and asked us to move her back home.  She was broken, sad and angry.  I was, too.  I had trusted that man with my most valued possession, and he had treated her like she was a raggedy old doll.  With time she began to heal and settle into life here.

     After much coaxing, I persuaded Ellysa to get a job working at JCPenney's, where I worked.  She was still living with us, but working together brought a different level of closeness.  She was competent and capable, enabling her to quickly rise to management positions.  It did this mama's heart good to see her succeeding, healing, moving on.

     After Ellysa met her wife, Alli, and moved out our working together became even more important to me.  We made sure to see each other each shift.  Our offices were close together, and she usually stopped by before she'd head out for the day.  

     All along Ellysa had been dealing with increasing levels of anxiety.  It has been a constant for most of her life.  She's medicated.  She's professionally treated.  Still, it can overwhelm and envelop her.

     Nearly 2 years ago I got a phone call no parent wants to get.  They were headed to the hospital.  My daughter wanted to hurt herself.  It's all she could think about.  They would let me know more later.  My heart was racing.  My mind swirled with all the scary thoughts of what she could have done.

     I went to work, going through the motions of my day, waiting for news. (On a side note: this is when we learned how incredibly broken the mental health care system is.  Despite Ellysa's critical state, no in-take was available to her for 5 days.  I don't know what people without support systems do.)

     Alli called with the update.  They were home.  She had taken Ellysa's car keys and hidden all the sharp objects.  People would need to stay with Ellysa until she could get into a program the next week.  I had never felt more helpless.  There was literally nothing I could do to protect her.

      Ellysa ended up being out of work for several weeks while she was in treatment.  I would walk into her office and begin to cry thinking about what I almost lost.  She had left a sweater hanging on her chair.  Sometimes, I would stop and touch it.  Smell it.  I would pray for her, thanking God for sparing her life.

     Tomorrow, Ellysa turns 29.  It's not lost on me how this could have been a birth remembrance instead of a birthday celebration.  I haven't always been able to protect her like I have wanted, but I hope she always feels protected how I could.

*Are you in a mental health crisis? 

 www.nami.org

 www.nimh.nih.gov

 www.thetrevorproject.org

     

     

What If This Is the End

     I was raised in a Pentecostal, Assembly of God church.  Pastors preached fire and brimstone, and it felt like I needed to be more afraid of going to hell than of loving God.  Traveling evangelists would visit the church and hold special meetings, each one proclaiming we were living in "the end times" and that the "rapture" was near.  Although I knew I was a Christian and that Jesus "lived in my heart", I went to bed fearful most nights.

     I remember there was a movie making it's rounds through the churches.  It was called Thief in the Night.  It basically told the story of people who didn't choose to follow God and the horrible things they endured after the Rapture (when God calls the Christians to Heaven).  It was a Bible-based movie straight out of Revelation but, again, focused on fear rather than love.  It haunted me for years!  Again, I knew I was a Christian but I still felt like I needed to ask Christ into my heart almost daily.  If I awoke during the night and the house was silent, I would panic.  I would listen to hear my dad snoring.  He was the best Christian I knew, so God wouldn't leave him behind.  His snoring was a comfort to me.

     As I matured in my walk with God, I learned His focus is on having a relationship with me.  He wants to love me, not punish me.  Don't get me wrong.  I still believe in sin, and the punishment of sin.  I still believe there will be a rapturing of those in relationship with Him.  I believe there will be a time of tribulation as outlined in Revelation, and that this will provide yet another opportunity for people to turn to God.

     I believe that time is near.

     The Bible talks about wars and rumors of wars; our world is flooded with that right now.  It talks about the seasons being confused, and floods, famine and pestilence.  Today we're dealing with global warming, food shortages and murder hornets.  The Bible says that man will rise against man-- this has never been truer than today (but I'll save that for another post).

     I think because I grew up in such fear of the end times that I neglected to talk to my kids about it.  I think I assumed that they just "knew".  After all we went to church whenever the doors were open.  We attended a Bible-based church, so I just assumed they understood.  I did them a great disservice.   My greatest fear as we speed along this trajectory is not for myself.  I no longer doubt where I will spend eternity.  It's for my kids, my extended family, my friends.  Have I presented them with all the information they need s they can make an informed choice?  Have I been the example they needed to see?  Will they be drawn to God because of the relationship they see I have with Him?  That is my burden.

     So, as all this craziness unfolds in our world I urge you to check your heart.  Is it right with Him?  Talk to your loved ones.  What is their relationship with God like? Speak to your friends and extended family.  Spread the word.  If you believe the Gospel is good news, share it!  To you I may sound like those old evangelists, and maybe there's still time.

     But what if there isn't?

The dreams I dream

Last night I dreamed that I died.
This is not an uncommon dream for me, but this morning I forced myself to wake up.  I just didn't want to see myself die... again.  I've developed this coping mechanism over the years, this ability to force myself awake, to shield myself from nightmares and, also, painful memories from my past.

Death is inevitable.
I know that it's coming, and probably sooner than I'd like.
I know I will die long before my husband does.
I know I am both ready and unready for this to happen. 

My spirit longs to be in God's presence. 
This keeps me from having a fear of dying.
My body is ready to be done with all the pain, torture and torment it continues to go through.
My mind is not ready.
I worry about my kids. 
What will their relationship with their dad, my husband, look like after I am gone?  How will my passing impact their relationship with God?  I want it to draw them closer, not give them reason to retreat.  That is my greatest fear.

I know people think I'm weird when I talk about my death.  But the fact is, I need to be prepared, to have things in order.  I will be a control freak until the end!
My ability to talk about my death speaks to my relationship with God.  How others react to it speaks volumes about their inability to understand that relationship, and me.
The longing to be in His presence is overwhelming.  Just the small taste I've had of him here makes me want more.
It doesn't make me sad.
I know He is a safe place.
I know He is waiting for me with arms wide-open, a big smile on his face,  I see myself running into his embrace like I do a dear friend I haven't seen in a very long time.
He smells good.  Better than downy.
His arms are strong, but he holds me gently.  It's even more soft than the blanket Cinnamin made for me.
I snuggle in and he says "I've been waiting for you".

I'd rather dream of that any day of the week.

Church Abuse

I escaped from a cult.
Not the kind that kidnaps you, brainwashes you and demands a ransom from your family.  This one was far more sinister.

When my family moved back to Pennsylvania from Tennessee in 1999, we were broken.  Our marriage was in shambles, my husband was struggling at his job and our kids were young and needed a lot of attention.  We were living in his parent's house while we looked for our own, sampling churches along the way.

Once we knew the area we were going to live, we narrowed our church search to those close by.  In one church we went to, no one greeted us, or even acknowledged our presence.  In another, we just happened to be there the same day the pastor announced his resignation.  So, when we happened upon a small, overly-friendly congregation, it seemed like a great fit.  At least to my husband.  He went to the altar for prayer.  He cried and cried.  When we got home, he said being at that church made him "feel like he was home".

I didn't feel the same.
Something just seemed a little too good there.

I sat back and I watched.  That's what I do.  Size people up.  See if their walk matches their talk.  I hang back in the shadows, watching, trying to be unnoticeable.  I began to make friends on the fringe, but never quite considering it *my* church.

After we'd been there for about a year, I began to slowly let my guard down.  I became involved in things.  I attended women's bible studies and outings. I was assigned a mentor.  It seemed like the more I shared with her, the higher I rose in the church.  This brought jealous whispers behind my back and strange accusations.  It didn't make sense to me.  I was just being me, trying to improve myself.

I joined the prayer team.  I became the administrative assistant to the pastor.  I was in the inner circle. The whispers continued.  But I was confident in my position, knowing I was not doing anything wrong.  And as I felt more comfortable, I shared more and more of me.  My past, my hurts, my struggles.  The problem was, I was sharing those details with the wrong people.

The pastor was charismatic.  Fatherly.  Disarming. He seemed safe, maybe even trustworthy.  For me, that was a giant step.  The way he asked questions seemed caring, not probing.  I began to tell him more and more, thinking he was helping me deal with my past, sort out current issues, deal with people.  Instead he was grooming me.  Using my hurts, my quirks, my pasts to manipulate me, to further entrench me in their *system*.

Things were good there for a long time.
We established strong friendships.  Our house was often filled with people and laughter.
We experienced healing in our marriage, even having a ceremony there to renew our marriage vows.
I began to have healing in my life, starting to deal with scary, hurtful things from my past.
To let people *in*.

Then things got strange.  It began to fill uncomfortable.  We began to question things being said and done.  That was the beginning of the end.  I'd seen what happened to people who disagreed: how they were punished, ostracized, talked about, forced to leave.  Suddenly I was that person.  My worst nightmare was coming true.

The next 14 months were basically hell on earth for my family.  I watched my children's friends be torn away from them.  People quit talking to us.  I was forbidden to talk to the "pastor", and was assigned a handler who was supposed to be my liaison.  He took his job very seriously, using every opportunity to remind me of his place of power over me.

Fourteen months of pain and bewilderment.
Fourteen months of watching our friends drift away, choosing to sacrifice their relationships with us in order to maintain their position in the church.
Fourteen months of no one praying for us.
Fourteen months of crying every. single. day.

When we finally left there, I was totally broken.
My physical health deteriorated to the point that I had to stop working.  Some days I couldn't even get out of bed.  I was in constant physical pain.  The emotional pain was immeasurable.
I was diagnosed with complex PTSD.
I lived in constant fear of running into someone from that leadership team.  The few times i did see people at the grocery store, they made eye contact then turned and walked away.
I felt like a pariah.

We've been away from that for seven years now.
In some ways, I feel like I'm back to the broken woman I was when we first started attending there. The guard is so much stronger now, more impenetrable than it was before.
I'm more alert and cautious.
I'm slower to let people in, and quicker to let them out.
It's a lonely place to be.

I'm looking for the ways that I'm stronger now because of that experience.  Those are harder to find. I feel like the areas that I'm stronger in are negatives.
I'm more cynical.
I'm more guarded.
I'm even more untrusting.
But I'm alive.  I got out.
The cult, that man, did not break me.

Make a choice already

I've spent the majority of my life deciding what I didn't want to be.

I didn't want to be a victim.
A victim like my mother, brutalized by someone she loved.  A victim like my grandmother who fought the demons but lost.  A victim like that lost little girl that men touched and kissed and based her worth on her looks.

I didn't want to be dependent on a man for... anything.
I didn't want a man to tell me if I could spend money or not.  Not like my mom.
I didn't want to need a man to fix things, open things, protect me from things.

I didn't want to be different.
Not the shy girl who couldn't meet your gaze.  Not the adopted girl who didn't look like the rest of the family..  Not the girl who scratched rashes or had non-stop cold sores. Not the girl with the past so scary that she couldn't talk about it.

I didn't want to be used.
Not by any one.  Least of all by a father who treated me like a possession. Or an uncle with disgusting motives. Or any one of the boys who tried to lure me away into dark rooms and wooded trails.

I didn't want to be afraid.
Afraid of an abusive father with a quick temper.  Afraid of turning out like my mother.  Afraid of being less than.  Afraid of not being able to protect myself and the ones I loved. Afraid of the dark.  Afraid of the silence.  Afraid of closed doors and unknown places.  Afraid of people and afraid of myself.  Afraid of making the wrong choice.  Afraid of losing everything... again.

I didn't want to be alone.

The problem is that while I was so focused on not being something, I didn't choose what I did want to be.  I just let my life morph me into someone hard, jaded, solitary, non-trusting, fierce, abrasive and wildly independent.    I built walls greater than the ones Trump has planned.  I learned to disconnect from my body, to not respond to touch.  I learned to free myself from external emotion, to pace my breathing and maintain control.  I learned to hide all emotion and project a blank canvas that didn't belie the turmoil just below the surface.

They say if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger.  I'm not sure that's the case.  I think it makes you harder.  People stop trying to get in, stop trying to penetrate the fortress that's been reinforced with fat and sarcasm on the outside, hurt and loneliness on the inside.  People pull away-- or are driven away-- and every fear about people is realized.

People suck.  People leave.  People hurt.  People disappoint.  People are... people.  And supposedly I need them.  Well, that's what I'm told.  I don't totally buy into that.  I'm skeptical.  But maybe I don't want to be.