My mother wasn't the fighting type. She was the avoiding type. And she avoided a Truth so big it has created a family full of incest survivors. You see, when you look away, turn your gaze away, disavow your gut instinct and what has gone on in your home...when you go ahead and do it anyway (like marry the person).....knowing goddamned well you shouldn't....there are consequences. There are always, always consequences to turning away. Always. And that's what I have decided I am done with in this life. And this is a part of that story.

Every rape victim who doesn't admit that she or he was raped and who doesn't heal what's necessary knows this. 

We know the deep and sever consequence of NOT telling on the perpetrator. Not healing. Not getting away. Not divorcing because of this or that. Not Not Not Not a thousand Nots.

Because when we do not take care of ourselves and the business at hand...when we don't dare to LOVE ourselves enough to look in the goddamn mirror and say, "I have made a mistake. I need to deal with this. I was raped and instead of turning on my rapist, my God, I have turned on myself...over, and over, and over, and over, and over......" when we don't get off the couch and become willing to admit our darkest secrets to ourselves, our God, our people....then, well, we're doing a really good job of screwing ourselves royally, over and over--way more than the original perpetrator could have done.

And I'm by no means letting the rapists off the hook. They are very very wrong and it's terrible to take anyone in that way. But the insanity is that the victim keeps herself in her own living hell by looking the other way and not dealing with the shame of what happened, guilt at what telling the truth might do to her family (or the rapist), and fear of retaliation by him, or the rest of her (beloved?) family. 

And that, ladies, and the gentleman who raped me, is how it goes.

I have lived in my own personally-created jail cell for a good 50 years. It had no windows, no running water, no lights really to speak of. It was smelly and dank, musty and old, much like a latrine in there. It was actually full of shit.  And it was my normal. I was so safe in all of the foul lies that I stayed long past when I needed to or could have climbed out. 

I don't blame myself. But Jesus knows, that pit full of lies was horrendous. 

Someone had to clean it out.

And that someone could only be me. Well, Me, and God. I had every bit of help from God that I could possibly possibly ever imagine. In turning my gaze from the truth of the molestation, grooming, and rape of my childhood, I turned on myself, as well as the God of my Understanding. I turned on the divine love of God that was always there by my side in every way. 

And you know what? That created more shame than I could bear. I see now that the shame of turning on God was actually my own personal hell. We can either be in a connection of Heaven, knowing God is always with us, or in Hell, believing things like: there is no God; God doesn't exist or why would this horrible thing have happened to me; I have been raped and thus I am so so so so so so vile and dirty even God can't love me or want me near him or her; Nobody can know my dark, dirty secret, or they surely won't want me in their lives; Nobody must know how bad and dirty and unworthy I really am or they will never love me.....and on and on and on.

Those are the lies I was telling myself every day, but I didn't even know it. That was my subconscious story that ruled my conscious existence in every single way without me even knowing that was happening.

And as I came to see, those are the lies that kept me up at night and kept me in a constant state of fear, worry and anxiety. My dark secret was so awful that I lived my life hiding it, spending all of my energy weaving more and more lies around the cesspool of truth brewing inside of me in the dark. The only thing I would let out was anger, resentment, and judgment. That's the result of hiding a shame so great it could implode me if anyone else knew. That shame, anger and judgment is the stuff I was raised on. The mother and father of my birth passed that down to my brother and me. And I drank it like Kool-aid, and he groomed me to lie and deceive and look away, and she taught me that nice girls don't do that and we don't talk about those body parts at the age of 3 and 4....and so it went, on and on, for 5 decades.

Until the Force of God stepped in. 

You see, I sleep through the night now because I have been willing to face the truth and heal my deepest shit.

Beloveds, the only thing that stands a chance between this kind of darkness is the Light of the Divine that loves You and Me equally and unconditionally. I call that God.

If you ask me, unconditional love is the ONLY salve for this kind of pain.

It works. It keeps working. I am healed and I keep being released from the layer upon layer of lies and shame I was sold into, but that also I kept alive myself long beyond when I had to.

It's the lies we keep telling ourselves that keep us in prison. Let me repeat them here because I'm kind of thinking that if you've read this far, it's not only for the story. There may be some truth that you're seeing that you get to see for yourself and with that honey-golden light of God, set yourself free. You may have been told any number of things by a parent, caretaker, lover, spouse, former friend or confidante. As I say, people are people and sometimes they do really shitty things that hurt.

But it's the lies we keep telling ourselves long after the traumatic event is done that keep us In prison.

That's where your sovereign responsibility kicks in. 

Because you see you have and always have had the key to your freedom from shame and guilt and persecution tied neatly around your neck: Let yourself be loved by God. Let God do the work of scooping out the latrine for you. LET this happen by being willing to look in the mirror and say yeah....I have been doing that. I have been lying to myself and everyone around me by claiming I'm alright when really I'm nowhere near alright. I have been hiding this tormented past to protect someone else and it's goddamned time I decide that I AM THE ONE WHO IS ACTUALLY WORTHY OF PROTECTING....from my own sinister thoughts, fears, emotions, and outrage. It's time. I am willing. And by God, I am going to let this shit go. Now. Over and over. Until there is none left in me, and it has been replaced by a Light so bright that people will be in fucking awe at my transformation. Because that's what happens when you let the light in. But more importantly, I WILL BE the one in awe by all the light inside of me. I do it not for a show and tell, for anyone else out there made up or real who I used to believe I had to please over and over...but for me. I will do this for me. And God. Because I am so so so so so so worth it.

Here are the kinds of lies I'm talking about, that I carried around both subconsciously, and consciously, for 50 years until I could be brave, be loved, be shown the truth, admit the truth, forgive myself, and peel them away layer by layer, healing session by healing session, phone call by phone call, in this blessed form of being carried by God's love to the place of purification, understanding, self forgiveness, self compassion, and.......freedom. Freedom. Freedom. It's everything, love. 

20 of the Lies I Told Myself:

1. I am unworthy.
2. Nobody will love me if they know what happened to me and thus how dirty I am.
3. I am filthy and unlovable.
4. I am a bad person for letting this happen to me.
5. I am so very stupid and unworthy for letting this happen to me.
6. I have to protect my ex-father because he is old and poor of heart and mind and body and I'll just let it go because eventually he will die and it will all be fine.
7. I have to protect my ex-mother because she was young and stupid and didn't know who she was marrying and she doesn't deserve to have to deal with this in her ripe old age.
8. I have to protect his wife because I love her so much and she's so kind and she has had such a hard life. She just doesn't deserve to have to deal with this.
9. I have to keep this secret because what will all of my cousins and relatives say? 
10. I have to ignore what happened in my childhood because it doesn't really matter. I can just live my life and die anyway and it will be fine.
11. I am the strongest one I know and so I can deal with all of this shame and pain so why don't I just do this?
12. I am a healer and I am supposed to heal this family of all its toxicity. This is my mission. So I can save the generations beyond me.
13. I rely on these parents for sustenance and so I'd better buck up and be a good girl or they won't feed me.
14. This is what love is. 
15. This is how a father and daughter show their love for each other. It's quite normal.
16. My family is just like Beaver's family on Leave it to Beaver. We don't have any problems at all. 
17. My father is such a good man -- he is a Boy Scout Leader and he lets me stay at his house whenever I need him.
18. My mother is my best friend. She really cares about me and my girls.
19. It's too hard.
20. My ex-husband is the problem. He had such a messed-up family. I don't know why I married him.

And so on.

See what I am getting at?

I think if there's one thing you read and take away, it's that some of us, who grew up in toxic families, have turned on ourselves so deeply it causes immense pain. The pain of turning on myself was thousands of times worse than the pain that the pedophile caused me from age 3 to 14. But the mind-fuckery, grooming, manipulation, and resulting self-loathing are the result. And unfortunately for me, I was the one who had to reckon with that. If you've experienced that form of sadism you've had to do that, too. It sucks. But it's the name of the game of Freedom and this I know: If being willing to see, forgive, heal, admit the truth is the cost of admission to the land of personal freedom, well, it's damn worth it. I'd rather be here where I am on the other side of it any day than back in that cesspool of fear, deception, smoke and mirrors, and lies. It's way better on this side in green pastures where new life is beginning to evolve for me. It's been hard as hell. It's been a living hell. But, it's been worth it so far.

If letting the love inside to heal the blindness, the darkness, the pain, the illusions of what I wanted as a family that never ever was love.....if that's the way it heals, then count me in. It's worked so far, and I'm about to keep letting it show me now what life is like without the bondage of self hatred and remorse that I lived with in the depths of me for 53 years. It's not over, but it's bearable, and I have help from the highest places, and by God: I know that God loves me. Where I had become a stray....I don't ever doubt this love now. It's new still taking form...but I'm going to hold on to this Love until my dying breath and that's going to be my legacy.

Amen.

And so it is.

Praise the God who loves us all unconditionally and really just wants us to remember that.

Are you willing? 

Take a leap. 

I'm fairly certain it's a leap you won't regret.

Namaste.

--Suzanne Elizabeth Alexandria who Knows Who Loves Her and is Thankful Every Blessed Day. 

~~The End, and The Beginning.~~