Barely Breathing

I had an absolutely terrifying nightmare last night. I woke up and could barely breathe. It took me a few minutes to come back to reality. It also took me about an hour and a half to fall back asleep. I was terrified to go back to sleep but I knew I had to in order to be able to work today.

It was nighttime. I was in my bed in the bedroom I grew up in, the room in which I was abused for many years. In the room, there were three windows facing the front lawn. My father was outside trying to get inside the house so he could kill me. I watched as my mother went around the house making sure all the doors and windows were locked, but I still felt like he was going to get inside. There was still some way he could get in. I was not safe at all. At one point, he even went up to the three windows in my bedroom to look inside to see if I was in my room. When he did, I was so scared. Petrified. I was curled up in a ball in my bed, trying not to be seen.

What was so scary about the dream was how realistic it was. My home looked the way it did when I grew up. It wasn’t "off" at all. You know how in some dreams, you can tell it’s a dream even while you're dreaming. This nightmare wasn’t like that. 

It was real.

I’ve had nightmares of my father for as long as I can remember. It’s part of having PTSD. A few years ago, I had them so often that I hated sleeping.

I live with PTSD because I have lived a very traumatic life, one in which my life was often threatened by my father. My PTSD affects every part of my life, even sleep.

But I am moving forward. 

When I woke up from my nightmare, I kept telling myself that I was safe, that my father was not going to get me, and that I was far away from him. I also talked to my mother for a little bit last night after I woke up.

Recovering from trauma is difficult, but not impossible.

Reflection on Today

I don't really know what I want to talk about today. Today is one of the roughest days for me by far all year. I am triggered much more than usual, making things much more difficult. I have been trying to avoid Facebook. I am happy for those who have good fathers who treated them correctly, but today is a reminder of how awful my father is.

I don't hate my father, though. I hate what he did to me. I hate that my life is full of difficulty because he abused me for years. He did everything opposite of what a father should do. I have spent most of my life trying to recover from his abuse. I don't like to call him my father, because he never treated me like a father should treat his daughter. My brother even calls him by his first name because we can't bear to call him our father.

I don't really know what to talk about because I'm being triggered more than usual and not really in the mood to write. I've had a ton of flashbacks this morning. I just pray for those like me who don't know what it means to have a father, whether their father abandoned them, abused them or just isn't a part of their life. I hope you know that you're not alone. I hope you know that you can get through days like today.

I think that it's okay to be upset today. I think it's okay to be upset about what my father did to me. I think it's okay to be angry. This year has been extraordinarily difficult but I am finally healing from my father's abuse. I'm taking steps that I didn't know I would take or was scared to take. I'm moving through the trauma and moving forward.

Moving forward can be a big thing.

Most of all, I am glad to know the love of God, my real Father. It is His love that gets me through each day and His support that keeps me going. I would not be anywhere close to where I am without Him.

Today, I am thankful for God.

The I Am

"I have watched over them, I have protected them, and I have defended them. I've walked in front of them, behind them, and in the midst of them. I have nursed those that were sick, I have chased after some that went astray, and I have led them to the places where they needed to go, keeping them away from danger."
-Mac Brunson, Paralyzed by Fear or Empowered by Hope

For those who didn't read my post yesterday, instead of celebrating Father's Day, I celebrate God Day. I grew up in an abusive home in which I never really learned what it meant to have a father. Throughout my life, I have grown up knowing God as my real Father, which is why I call it God Day.

I chose to focus on the quote above because I think that it not only resembles what God does for each of us, but it serves as a reminder to fathers about their roles in our lives.

God protects. He keeps us from harm. For many years I had trouble understanding this because of my surroundings growing up. The place where I was supposed to feel the most comfort in my life, my home, was full of turmoil, terror and fear. I never knew when I would be abused next. My sense of safety was destroyed. So was my sense of a father's protection. He did the opposite of protecting me. I still deal with issues with my sense of safety as I deal with paranoia. But God has continually shown me that He cares about me and wants me to be safe. He helped rescue me from that home and He has saved my life a few times.

God defends us. God fights for us when we have no strength to fight for ourselves. He brings His strength into our lives when we have no strength left to fight. Trust me, when I went through the abuse, I thought there was no end in sight. But it did end and I am very thankful for that. God was there, right beside me, fighting through and it eventually stopped.

God walks with us. Sometimes He walks in front of us, sometimes He walks behind us and sometimes He walks beside us. I'll never forget when I went against my father to get a restraining order and my therapist at the time told me that God was going in front of me. It gave me great comfort to know that He already has gone before me and He was fighting for me. I was absolutely terrified, because I had to see my father in court and my PTSD was very bad then, even worse than it is now. I truly believe that God walks with us throughout our lives, helping us through the most difficult times. He never leaves us nor forsakes us.

God helps those who are sick. As someone who deals with a few disorders and sicknesses, I know personally that God helps us through. In my own personal life, He helps me discern the truth from lies or deception when I'm dealing with my paranoia. He helps comfort me after I have flashbacks and nightmares due to my PTSD. He helps me get through the days when my disorders are really bad by providing me with strength.

God searches for those who are lost. Quite a few times in my spiritual/religious life, I've lost connection with God, but God has always brought me back to Himself. He reminds me of how He has helped me, rescued me and saved my life. He never forgets us, especially when we are lost or we lose sight of Him.

God leads us. If we put our lives in God's hands, He can help lead us to where He wants us to be. Whenever I have to make a big decision about where I need to go, I always pray to God for discernment. He has led me to amazing places in my life, which I am very grateful for. I never would have made it this far in my life without His guidance.

And for fun, to end this blog, here are two more baby photos of me:

Father to the Fatherless

I finished my first week working at my new job and it feels great! I like the people I work with and things are going smoothly.

However, I'm still dealing with some paranoia. I'm aware of it but things are still challenging. I think that my father is trying to get everyone to not believe me and to not care about me. For years, he told me nobody would believe me if I told them what happened. Earlier this year it was worse and I thought nobody believed me, including my doctors. It's difficult, because I wish it all was a lie. I wish I was making all of it up. But it's all in court records and other records. It's gotten to the point that sometimes even I think it's a lie, but how could a mind make up all that stuff for 20 some-odd years and have all the paperwork to prove it?

Anyway, guess what!

God Day is this Sunday.

I think I'm also being triggered because Father's Day is coming up. I call it God Day because my true Father is God. I despise Father's Day because I am triggered more than usual. I'm probably going to avoid social networking this weekend as much as possible because the triggers are everywhere, even more than normal.

Father's Day is the one Sunday of the year that I usually skip church. It's not that I don't like others celebrating their fathers. It's just that it is a reminder of everything that my father was and is not. He was never there for me. When my mom and I were homeless, he didn't even pay child support when we most needed it. He was always hurting me, throughout my life not just in my childhood. It is not easy seeing the person who is the reason I have PTSD throughout my life. You have no idea how much I wish that he was in jail for everything but he got away.

However, please don't get me wrong. I love that others have great fathers. I'm not jealous of them because I've never known what having a father means. You don't know what you're missing if you don't have it to begin with. I consider myself to be fatherless. Anyone who has heard my life story and what happened will agree that I don't have a father. He was everything but.

I have heard that fathers are supposed to treat their children like God treats each one of us. I've often had difficulty understanding who God is because my father never showed me who God was. Although he did think he was God. Before I got my restraining order, he used to send me letters and cards sometimes that ended with a signature saying "your one and only Father" or similar things. When I was being abused, he often called himself God or referenced himself as God. I think that's why it's taken so long to understand God's unconditional love. In many ways, I feel as if I've been brainwashed. Things have been twisted in my mind.

Even through all of the difficulties and challenges, God has continually shown me what unconditional love means. He has shown me who He is even without an earthly father. He helps me to discern the lies from the truth of what my earthly father has told me.

One of my favorite songs of all time is This Christmas by TobyMac. I know it's not Christmas but I'm going to post the song anyways. I listened to this song every time I was in the car ride to go to therapy as a teenager. It helped remind me that God is my true Father and that God cares about those who are fatherless. Like most of the music I listen to, it helped me tremendously through a difficult time.

Moving Ahead

I don't normally blog twice a day, but I wanted to talk about a few things that I have read this afternoon that opened my eyes.

"All of our lives and all of our pain cannot be blamed on someone who neglected, abused and hurt us."
-Stephen Arterburn, Reframe Your Life

I admit that I tend to focus on the hurt that has done to me. After all, I was abused for 7 years and neglected for 3 years. Add to that the fact that I have PTSD, in which I relive the trauma every single day. Needless to say, I feel entitled to be angry about my past.

But I really do have a choice.

I can either let my father, who I haven't talked to or seen in years, continue to rule my life or I can move ahead into God's plans for my life. 

Sometimes I blame him for everything that has happened to me, but moving forward is up to me and more than ever before, I want to move ahead. I don't want to let the flashbacks rule my life anymore.

I do not think I have fully forgiven my father for everything he's done. Sometimes I still feel angry about what my mother did. I admit that forgiving may be one of the hardest things I will ever do. But it's a step that I need to take in order to live a fulfilling life.

Sometimes I pray for my father. I do not hate him. In fact, I do not hate anybody. But I also do not like him. I may not know why he did what he did to me, but I know that he is not all bad. I know that there has to be some good in him, even if I cannot see it. And I do wish and hope that he knows about God. I want him to know that God has forgiven him, even though it may take some time for me to forgive him.

"Every one of us has messed up, and we are all fellow strugglers. When we acknowledge this, we take away our entitlement to blame and shame. We take a little focus off the evil done to us, and put a bit more emphasis on the reality of today and our current struggles as fallible human beings... Without this hurt, life would still not have been a piece of cake, because we, in and of ourselves, would have sinned and made mistakes and fallen short and messed it up in other ways."
-Stephen Arterburn, Reframe Your Life

The last sentence really struck me. I always blame my horrible childhood for making me feel so hurt. I blame my father for almost ruining my life. But the truth is that we all are imperfect and no matter how much we try to live a perfect life, nobody can. We all fail and make mistakes. Sometimes I focus on how evil the stuff my father has done to me is without realizing that I am suffering because of my own imperfections.

A few months ago, my mother sent me something that talked about suffering. It basically said that we have the choice to continue to suffer or to move ahead. At first, I was frustrated that it seemed like she was blaming me for my suffering when I believed I was suffering because of what my father did. But really deep down, to come out of suffering is to change how we see what was done to us. It takes courage to leave the past behind us, especially such a difficult past. It is about realizing that we live in a fallen world and that we have a choice about how we want to live our lives.

All I know is I want to move ahead into God's beautiful plan for my life. I am done being stuck on the negative events of my past. I want to truly heal and I want to forgive.

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, 

“plans to prosper you and not to harm you,

plans to give you hope and a future."

-Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

No More Hiding...

In many different situations in our lives, we put on faces. These so-called faces are different when we are at work, when we are at home, when we are out with friends, when we are at church.

I personally struggle with having two main faces.

Most of my life, I have spent my life pretending that everything in my life was perfect. I excelled at school. When I read about quantum physics or vector spaces, my mind is consumed with numbers, theories, and equations. Everyone on the outside saw me and sometimes still see me as this intelligent person who must "obviously" come from a great family. They have no idea what I deal with on a daily basis.

As I have been going through the healing process, the other part of my life is surfacing. Even when on the outside, it looks like everything is perfect, I have spent most of my life just trying to survive. At many different points of each day, I have flashbacks. Through all of this, it almost feels as if I am living two lives. 

Flashbacks are different than memories. When I have a flashback, I am not in the present time at all. I am back to when I was a little child. It is like having a video screen right in front of my eyes. I do not notice anything in the present time. My perspective is that of a little child. My feelings are that of a little child. My fear is that of a little child. I am back there…

One minute, I am in class listening to a lecture, and the next, I am watching my mother be abused and nearly killed in front of me at the age of six. The fear is overwhelming.

I have hundreds of these flashbacks from all different points in my life.

Even in these difficult times, it is so powerful to know that God sees the real me. He knows what I went through. I believe that He cried with me as I went through all of those difficult times. I believe that He still continues to carry me through each day. When I am in God's presence, I do not have to hide the deep hurt and fear I go through every day. I do not have to pretend like everything is great when deep inside me, there is a raging storm.

I often ask God not only why He allowed such horrible, unimaginable things to happen to me for years, but also why I constantly have to deal with such intense flashbacks. Wasn't going through all of those traumatic events enough?

I do not know why He does not stop the flashbacks or why I have to deal with them every single day.

What I do know is that He has continually supplied me with strength to keep moving forward. What I do know is that I do not have to hide who I am from God. He created me and helped me get through everything. 

"For thou didst form my inward parts:

Thou didst cover me in my mother's womb.

I will give thanks unto thee; 

for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: 

Wonderful are thy works; 

And that my soul knoweth right well.

My frame was not hidden from thee, 

When I was made in secret, 

And curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth."

-Psalm 139:13-15 (ASV)

The hope and joy I find in God and the words above which remind me of how much He loves me are the main reasons why I continue to fight each and every day. He is the main reason I choose to wake up every morning and put on the full armor of God.

What I struggle with the most is not necessarily forgiving those who have hurt me deeply; my main struggle is forgiving myself. I can see other people go through similar things I have gone through and I feel for them. But I feel like what happened to me is different. I try to make excuses for those who have hurt me, but when it comes to myself, I cannot find any excuses. It is so much easier for me to console someone else than myself.

When my parents separated when I was six after having many arguments about me, I blamed myself for their separation and eventual divorce. When my brothers became addicted to drugs, I blamed myself, saying that if I had not caused my parents' divorce, then they would have been fine. When I was neglected, I blamed myself for not doing anything right and believed I was not worthy of anybody's time. When my oldest brother committed suicide, I blamed myself for not forgiving him before he died.

Why?

Because as a child, I was continually told by my father that everything was my fault. I was called names and constantly told that I was stupid. I was treated like a nobody. Not even human. I was told that nobody would ever care about me. Throughout my years of growing up, I was told similar things not only by my father but many others. I was told that nobody in my family cared, that I ruined my family. I blamed myself for my family falling apart.

There have been a few people who have told me very positive things, like that I am worthy of true, unconditional love. When people say things like that to me, it is difficult to take in because it is so different. That tends to confuse people because they know I am intelligent. People get frustrated that it is so hard for me to believe. I think to others it is something so obvious, so basic. But to me, it's not that obvious, because I was not taught that while growing up.

When you grow up being told negative things about yourself and treated so horribly, it takes a lot of effort to start to take in anything positive. I am getting there, slowly but surely. As I go through this healing process, the more clearly I see how God was always there. I see how He brought certain people into my life at the right times. I see that I am His child and that I deserve better. I deserve to be cared for. I am worthy of His love and the love of others.

More importantly, I do not have to put on a face anymore. I have always been “the strong one.” I have always been the fixer. I wanted to fix everything that I saw as broken. I always wanted to fix what I thought I had broken. But I am learning that I do not have to hide my true feelings. I do to have to hide who I really am. There are moments when I can cry and weep over my past. There are moments when I can let it all out. There are moments in which I can allow myself to grieve over the past.

In order to be whole, we need to be true to ourselves. We need to be who we really are, not putting on different disguises around other people.

I’m not saying that I go around crying all day long everywhere I go. What I am saying is that I do not believe God calls us to hide who we really are. I believe it is okay to cry. It is okay not to be strong 100% of the time when we really feel broken and just want to cry. There is a reason He created me the way He did. There is a reason He created you the way you did. There is a reason why He has allowed certain events to happen in our lives.

Some of the joy I have felt recently has come from the fact that I feel so free in being able to share the deep parts of my life with those around me. There is something so freeing about not having to be strong all of the time. There is something so freeing about not having to hold everything in.

Though I still continue to deal with feelings of guilt, shame and fear on a daily basis, I am emerging from the cocoon I built around myself many years ago as a child and continued to build for most of my life. I am learning that I do not have to be defined by what I have been through. It is a part of me, but it is not who I am. God reveals who I am to me every single day and He shows who He is as well. The shame that I have carried for so long is slowly fading away.

I do not have to hide anymore..

Neither do you...

Can't Keep Me Down

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will."

-Romans 12:2 (NIV)

I just started reading Almost Home, a book by Kevin Ryan, President of Covenant House, and Tina Kelley.  This book takes a look at the lives of six homeless youth and Covenant House, a system of shelters around the world, focused on helping homeless youth.

Fortunately, I have not had to live on the streets. But I was so close when my mom and I got evicted that we had to live in different homes of friends. Within a few months, I lived in over six homes and even before the eviction, I had lived in a few different homes after I ran away to try to get into a foster home.

I shared this morning on my Facebook about how I realized early on as a child that school was my way out from the issues and problems going on in my family. I knew that if I focused on my education, the most stable thing I've had in life apart from God, then I could possibly get out of the cycle and do something awesome with my life. I knew that without money I had no chance to go and since I grew up in a poor home, I had to work hard to get scholarships. My grandparents did save up money for the education of me and my brothers, but that money ultimately went towards drug addictions and my oldest brother's funeral costs. Having a dead-beat dad not paying child support did not make matters any better either...

As I watched my last family member get arrested by police at 3:16 in the morning at the age of sixteen, I promised myself that I would never do drugs or drink or let them rule over my life. To this day, I have never even touched alcohol or drugs. I did not sleep that night but I went to school the next day. I remember that the police came searching my home at 3:16am, because even though I felt extremely worried, scared and alone, the verse John 3:16 came to my mind the second I looked at my alarm clock and a sense of peace overwhelmed me.

I've had a lot of naysayers in my life, telling me that I wouldn't make it. Even people who encouraged me I often felt that inside, they thought I wouldn't break the cycle and get out of my situation. People still today ask me how I've made it so far having grown up in the type of home I did.

But am I mad at those naysayers?

Actually, not at all. 

Having people who told me that I would not make it just fueled my motivation to prove them wrong and to depend on God for the strength and courage necessary to keep going in a positive direction.

Granted, I have had quite a few people who have taken time out of their lives to encourage me, listen to me, pray with me and support me. It is difficult to put into words what it meant and still means to have people care so much after being treated like I was and am not a person to be cared for, someone unworthy of true love and compassion... I have definitely had points in my life where I felt like a nobody and that all of my hard work was for nothing.

This life is not easy by any means, but we are blessed to live life, no matter how difficult it gets. Every day, every hour, every minute, every second is a precious gift from God. 

Even more so, we are so incredibly blessed to have a God who is there for us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. He is not only there, but He is all around us and within us.

My greatest prayer while growing up in the situations I did was that God would use the situations to help me become more Christlike. If you think about it, Jesus broke all the traditions in society.

I was thinking about this earlier today and it occurred to me that I have broken quite a few "traditions" of society. When I was a teenager, I was known as an "at-risk" teenager due to my problems at home. But now I am a doctoral student (a female engineer) studying in one of the most difficult fields of study.

We do not have to let our circumstances rule our lives.

I had all the excuses in the world to end up in jail, dealing drugs or living on the streets.

But I did not want to.

I have always felt called by God for more. I've always felt that there's a much greater purpose for my life. So through the worst of times, I kept moving forward and today, I am thriving. Whenever the good Lord does take me home, I hope that I have left this world and the people who I interacted with in a better state than before I came into this world.

As I observed and lived through my family falling apart due to drugs and alcohol, the following verse really helped me to continue to keep my eyes, ears, soul, mind and spirit focused on God.

"And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit"

-Ephesians 5:18 (KJV)

When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, magical things can happen.

One of the greatest influential people in my life once said that everybody has things that they deal with that are out of their control, but what we can control are our reactions to those things.

While I am not perfect in so many ways, I am glad to have the strength of God to help me through my trials and to help me break the cycles within my family.

In Christ, we are called to be separated from this world because we realize that we are not of this world. Our home is so much more than the places we live on this earth.

Throughout my teenage years, I listened to a lot of emo, rap and punk rock songs and the following song really helped me overcome my struggles as a teenager. This song came into my life at the perfect time. Every time I listen to this song, it reminds me that we do not have to let the negativity bring us down and most importantly, keep us down. Whenever somebody says or does something very hurtful towards us, we have a choice: we can let them keep us down or we can continue to get up and keep fighting for a better day. I know that this song is far from a Christian song (there is a curse word in the song), but this song has been an important song in my life.

No matter what comes into your life or however many times you fall down, I hope you continue to get back up, allowing the arms of the Healer to lift you up.

The Love of our Heavenly Father

God's love is something I have long misunderstood. I guess I have had a lot of trouble because I have such a difficult time understanding even what human love means.

People say that God's love is unconditional, that no matter what we do or do not do, He will still love us.

Growing up, I was often shown love by certain family members only if I did exactly what they told me to- it was highly conditional.

I consider myself fatherless. To me, I honestly don't know what having an earthly father means. My father is not gone. He did not abandon me. But he abandoned me in a lot of other ways. I do not consider him to be a father because he has never acted like one.

I have spent much of my life attempting to understand what unconditional love means and what a Father's love means- the love of our heavenly Father.

I have felt God's love in so many ways. I may not have an earthly father but I do have a heavenly Father who shows me the unconditional love I have been missing my entire life.

I feel His love most in sometimes the darkest moments of my life. I feel it when I take the time to just be still and be completely in His presence.

I feel His love as I look up at the clouds. There is something so majestic about the clouds in the sky. As a child, I often dreamt about flying with the birds in the sky.

The picture above is one of my absolute favorites that I have taken. When I look at the rays, it reminds me of how the light of God reaches out to us in no matter what situation we are going through- no matter where we are on the journey of life. There is nothing that allows me to hear God quite like nature.

I have grown to respect God so much when I look at the clouds because when the sun rises, a new day is here.

I struggle so much with my past that watching the sun rise or the sun set reminds me who really is in control, and it reminds me to stay in the present- that my past is not today, nor is my future- today is today.

No matter what fears or struggles will come today, I know that He is there for me, and that His love never fails.

Growing up, I often was taught to fear those who I thought loved me. I assimilated fear with love, because I did not really know anything different. I thought it was okay to be hurt by those who loved me. In many ways, that has made it difficult to trust God- to fully trust that His love will never harm me.

The times that I have felt God's presence the strongest were and are those moments in my life when everything is quiet. My life is so chaotic and confusing. Being in God's presence allows me to stop and breathe. He calms me down when I am in His presence. He tells me that everything will be okay. He says that I have nothing to fear.

God is love- He loves us, but ultimately He Himself is love. And the love He is does not live on fear.

That is so extremely powerful.

His love is pure, real and true.