Thoughts tumbling out of my heart.
I've been really trying to turn inward lately, per the advice of the author I've recently become addicted to (Emily Wierenga). And find out WHY I'm where I'm at? What happened to suddenly trigger all this? I KNOW that its control when my life has felt directed by others, to make my own identity when I feel like nothing more than the product of everyone's sin.
I was not a great mom when my husband and I got together. I was depressed. I didn't know how I was going to take care of three kids under the age of five when I didn't have a job, when I had to drop out of college, I had no money. Everything was breaking: the water heater, the car, the sidewalks, the furnace. I felt pretty pitiful not able to provide a warm house for my children, a place to take a hot bath, or food. I felt like I was going to crumble, and someone was going to have to sweep up all the pieces of me off the floor. He swooped in, my knight in shining armor! He had a plan, and he offered arms and encouragement. He offered hope. He held me to a standard that I both respected because I knew it was right, but resented because I felt like I was giving up my identity, somehow. It validated everything I felt was wrong with me. No one wants to feel like a terrible and emotionally absent mom.
I had things going on with my mom and my grandmother, things I hadn't realized were abuse, now being thrusted upon me! To realize how neglected I was, to mourn a mother I never had, but dreamed of. To realize just how loveless my childhood was, and how cold and empty it had left me. My ex was threatening court every couple of months, and I was crashing off pregnancy hormones. Nursing a baby in the darkness, feeling so isolated. I felt like such a let down as a wife and a mother and a friend and a daughter. I felt like a failure at everything. I felt suffocated under standards; standards that I mostly felt were right but resented because someone had always been telling me what to do my entire life, never thinking of me. Standards that told me how to parent and dress and where to nurse and... I just wanted some area that I felt like I had control over. So, in a way I opened myself up to this disease. The more compliments rolled in the more affirmation I got in SOMETHING! I was desperate to be good at anything. While I recognize that the things my husband was asking of me were right, it felt like so overwhelming all at once, and it made me feel like the worse person on the planet. It's so hard to respect and admire and resent the same person.
There were times I didn't eat to punish my husband. I hoped he heard what I was upstairs doing because I wanted him to hurt. Yet I hated myself for hurting him. He's always been my friend, and dedicated to what's right. But sometimes his standards are too high and the perfectionist in me wallows in pity and hated when I failed.
Still praying what God wants me to know about the child inside of me. There are times that I feel myself opening up to the vulnerability of marriage. The letting down of my guard and fully trusting in another to see me naked and not run, to being hurt is something terrifying. Most have sucked me dry and left me laying in a pool of hopes and dreams and heartache. I want to blindly trust and commit, but I find myself pulling back the pieces that I have given over. Terrified of the potential of pain, yet unable to think myself worthy of anything else.
It's a crazy world where you so intertwine the things that you DO with who you ARE. Granted these are a reflection of your heart, but what I Do, or what I WEAR isn't who I AM. So I felt stripped of my self in these changes motivated by fear of being alone. Where I longed to measure up and to be loved, but needed an outlet where I was in control and could demonstrate identity.
How do I change? How do I translate this pain, hopelessness, unhappiness into motivation and self acceptance? How do I learn to love myself for all the scars that create me? The fabric of wet with tears that is woven together to create the cement that guards my wounded heart? How do I learn to accept love that feels overpowering, and happiness that feels fleeting? I'm scared to be happy. i'm scared to feel joy because I'm terrified that I'll blink and devastation will drown me, only to leave me feeling twice as hopeless as before. Twice as unhappy. Twice as mad that I ever thought I had the right. I live in fear.
Beautiful song Some of the lyrics go:
But I will learn to breathe this ugliness you see,
So we can both be there and we can both share the dark.
And in our honesty, together we will rise,
Out of our nightminds, and into the light
At the end of the fight...
You were blessed by a different kind of inner view: it's all magnified.
The highs would make you fly, and the lows make you want to die.
And I was once there, hanging from that very ledge where you are standing.
So I know
I know
I know,
It's easier to let go.
I was not a great mom when my husband and I got together. I was depressed. I didn't know how I was going to take care of three kids under the age of five when I didn't have a job, when I had to drop out of college, I had no money. Everything was breaking: the water heater, the car, the sidewalks, the furnace. I felt pretty pitiful not able to provide a warm house for my children, a place to take a hot bath, or food. I felt like I was going to crumble, and someone was going to have to sweep up all the pieces of me off the floor. He swooped in, my knight in shining armor! He had a plan, and he offered arms and encouragement. He offered hope. He held me to a standard that I both respected because I knew it was right, but resented because I felt like I was giving up my identity, somehow. It validated everything I felt was wrong with me. No one wants to feel like a terrible and emotionally absent mom.
I had things going on with my mom and my grandmother, things I hadn't realized were abuse, now being thrusted upon me! To realize how neglected I was, to mourn a mother I never had, but dreamed of. To realize just how loveless my childhood was, and how cold and empty it had left me. My ex was threatening court every couple of months, and I was crashing off pregnancy hormones. Nursing a baby in the darkness, feeling so isolated. I felt like such a let down as a wife and a mother and a friend and a daughter. I felt like a failure at everything. I felt suffocated under standards; standards that I mostly felt were right but resented because someone had always been telling me what to do my entire life, never thinking of me. Standards that told me how to parent and dress and where to nurse and... I just wanted some area that I felt like I had control over. So, in a way I opened myself up to this disease. The more compliments rolled in the more affirmation I got in SOMETHING! I was desperate to be good at anything. While I recognize that the things my husband was asking of me were right, it felt like so overwhelming all at once, and it made me feel like the worse person on the planet. It's so hard to respect and admire and resent the same person.
There were times I didn't eat to punish my husband. I hoped he heard what I was upstairs doing because I wanted him to hurt. Yet I hated myself for hurting him. He's always been my friend, and dedicated to what's right. But sometimes his standards are too high and the perfectionist in me wallows in pity and hated when I failed.
Still praying what God wants me to know about the child inside of me. There are times that I feel myself opening up to the vulnerability of marriage. The letting down of my guard and fully trusting in another to see me naked and not run, to being hurt is something terrifying. Most have sucked me dry and left me laying in a pool of hopes and dreams and heartache. I want to blindly trust and commit, but I find myself pulling back the pieces that I have given over. Terrified of the potential of pain, yet unable to think myself worthy of anything else.
It's a crazy world where you so intertwine the things that you DO with who you ARE. Granted these are a reflection of your heart, but what I Do, or what I WEAR isn't who I AM. So I felt stripped of my self in these changes motivated by fear of being alone. Where I longed to measure up and to be loved, but needed an outlet where I was in control and could demonstrate identity.
How do I change? How do I translate this pain, hopelessness, unhappiness into motivation and self acceptance? How do I learn to love myself for all the scars that create me? The fabric of wet with tears that is woven together to create the cement that guards my wounded heart? How do I learn to accept love that feels overpowering, and happiness that feels fleeting? I'm scared to be happy. i'm scared to feel joy because I'm terrified that I'll blink and devastation will drown me, only to leave me feeling twice as hopeless as before. Twice as unhappy. Twice as mad that I ever thought I had the right. I live in fear.
Beautiful song Some of the lyrics go:
But I will learn to breathe this ugliness you see,
So we can both be there and we can both share the dark.
And in our honesty, together we will rise,
Out of our nightminds, and into the light
At the end of the fight...
You were blessed by a different kind of inner view: it's all magnified.
The highs would make you fly, and the lows make you want to die.
And I was once there, hanging from that very ledge where you are standing.
So I know
I know
I know,
It's easier to let go.