Tedder's Blog, page 8

Unhealed

All of us are at different stages in our healing. I find it important to not only acknowledge the unhealed among us (not to mention the unhealed parts of of ourselves) but to honor them as well.

Those who have healed have their vision to impart. They have an offering that shines, radiant with possibilities.

But for many that dream is too far away to grasp. It is too far away from the next step that must be taken.

The unhealed life is a bridge between terror and perfection.

It is tangible because it is close enough to everyone’s pain.

It is hope and courage held out to everyone; it is the triumph of the human spirit.

It acknowledges the uncertainty; it says there is love in it all…from unhealed to healed & everything in between.

B

The Brokenhearted Are Gullible

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Pain made me fall prey to all kinds of abuse as I grew and left my family of orgin. I had never been taught to say no. Rather, I was forced to comply as a child. That left me in a state where I was so easily persuaded. My compliance came at a very high price – my being had been abducted.

So, when I happened out into the world I wasn’t prepared for the slimballs I’d met — people who prey on folks like me. Did my father know what he was setting me up for? When my mother demanded my silence, did she know the price I would pay at the hands of others?

They don’t care, but I do!

Feeling loney? Listen to my audiobook. I created this for the brokenhearted, not for myself.

A Christmas Story

The true Christmas story of a baby in a manager is the story of good overcoming evil. In God’s vulnerable state of being born human as a baby, he still kicked Satan’s ass. I love this story.

My story is a difficult one, I know. I’ve heard from many that they cannot even read it. But, don’t miss the best part of my story. A little girl ended up kicking Satan’s ass, too. Because of the Christmas story I too have power over darkness.

Buy my book, keep it, and remember! If I overcame with the power of God, so can you. You are not alone on this journey.

Christmas Can Be Hard But Healing

Jesus came at Christmas to heal our hurts, including our hidden ones.

No matter who you meet, anywhere around the world, you will always have one thing in common: Everybody has a hidden wound.

Then Christmas comes around, and it’s supposed to be the happiest time of the year—a season to celebrate. But in reality, a lot of people are lonely and hurting and dealing with unresolved issues with their families. They have to work even harder over the holidays to keep the effects of their hidden wounds from surfacing.

No matter how you are hurting this Christmas, Jesus Christ can heal you. He can take your resentment, worry, guilt, fear, bitterness, boredom, and pain and cover it with the light of his love. This is what it means for Jesus to be the Light of the World.

A Christmas prayer for those of us struggling :

Lord, this season is hard, and I long to feel Your presence beside me and see You at work in my life. Help me to have confidence that You are always with me, and infuse me with hope, peace and joy I can’t find on my own. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

B

Words of Wisdom | It’s Too Crowded

With the holiday season upon us, the tragic loss of family is often overwhelmingly evident in the lives of survivors of incest.

When I want to bring my family to my holiday table, I have to remember that it is just too crowded at my table for them to attend.

My table is filled with blessings, freedom, and love. There is no more room for hate, absence, and rejection.

My table has chairs that are filled with people who bring me warmth not destruction.

My table is full of laughter not anguish.

I have to remind myself that my table is just too full of good to bring in the bad.

A Sense of Safety

I love being a mother but sometimes it is so overstimulating to my already taxed nervous system.

During one of my writing exercises today, there was a prompt to think and then write about what it would feel like to witness your own children go through the traumas and tribulations of your own childhood. To journal on all the feelings it brings up.

It was hard. Excruciating at some points. To subject my children (even via imagination) to the kind of treatment I received as I child feels almost too much to bear. Too cruel – for everyone involved.

But it helped. The growing anxiety in me and the sense of impending doom was almost immediately quelled after this exercise.

I never felt like I had a sense of safety as a child. I place of retreat. A place where I could go to and be untouched.

Today, I know that I need to pay attention to my inner emotions but sometimes feel afraid that I will never have enough time to accomplish this.

My body is telling me so much on a basis… cying out. It has held so much sadness. It has felt the weight of bodies 3 times as big as me. It has witnessed more than one person should. It has withstood beatings and traumas and hurts both physically, sexually and emotionally.

But it is here.

Maybe not in one piece. But that’s ok. For now. And maybe always too. Only time will tell.

B

Mirror Mirror | Perfectionism or Realist?

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Introspection — what better way to start a week.

I shouldn’t be who I am. Oh, I still have struggles and from time to time and I still like to check out. But, mostly, I am present. In all of it. I am present with my memories. I hold them tenderly — even the ugliest parts of my childhood. With my children and grandchildren I share my time with them boldly — the good, the bad, the ugly.

I am here authentically sharing my story of walking through a childhood riddled with sexual abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse and abandonment. I am brave enough to openly help you to the other side of healing. It is a life long journey.

Today I honor myself. I am a walking miracle. Not perfect by a longshot. I know I should not be walking as well as I am today.

I am a miracle!

How do you honor yourself?

“ I don’t want to have kids because I don’t wanna make the same mistakes my parents did.”

I do not understand how people gaze at their infant and see only future and not so much past.

Before I became a mother, I had so much fear about passing on the sins of prior generations. I wondered how I was going to be able to break the cycle when I had succumb to it via self harm so many times myself.

How would I care for an innocent human when I had a pretty terrible track record in terms of taking care of myself, my friends and loved ones …heck, even plants!

People see their baby, their face : a clean slate. A new start. False. The baby harbors a secret shared history – encoded on its heart, it’s body, in its DNA.

We can easily muse on the fact that certain talents and mannerisms are passed down but completely unwilling to admit that the poison can seep through too.

“You’ll be everything I’m not” as if love will will the ghosts away.

Love doesn’t cure all. It’s not enough.

The past, if unresolved, will always come stalking and it will have the final say. Things will hold until they won’t. The ghosts will jimmy the door, they will come in through cracks.

We have to do the work. Break the cycle. Pull our heads out of the damn sand. Heal for them and refuse to leave them with the enormous burden of inter-generational trauma.

Babies need more than love. They need protection. They need consistency. They need you to be healthy and surround yourself with healthy and safe people. They need you to heal yourself so you don’t repeat the cycle.

B

Words of Wisdom | TRIUMPH

Have you ever considered yourself a winner? You should!

It was a great victory to make it out of childhood abuse. That acheivement should be celebrated.

By looking at ourselves *UCU(YOU SEE YOU), we can find the treasures hidden in our lives — and we have many. By focusing on those that hurt us through hate, anger and despair, we only feel like losers.

Maybe I never will accomplish returning the murdered woman to her family, but I have accomplisehd a lot. Her story lives on with me — that is a triumphant feat.

I made it!

Can you see yourself triumphant?

Why Do Families Keep Incest Alive?

Denial.

Plain and simple.

Oh, there are other reasons too. But in my experience, this is the most common. Often, it is paired with other motivations…but denial is the underpinning of all family incest secrets.

Incest families eat, sleep and drink denial. At a very young age we are directed to deny our own feelings and experiences. We are taught to deny reality. Abuses against ourselves and others in the family. And it all bleeds out from there.

Those of us who grew up in an incestuous familes may experience dissociation and avoidance of negative feelings in adulthood. We may doubt our perceptions, particularly in intimate relationships. Denying problems is one of the hallmarks of a these families and it starts from birth.

DON’T TALK. DON’T TRUST. DON’T FEEL.

The message is: Act like everything is fine and make sure everyone else thinks were a perfectly normal family. This is extremely confusing for children who sense that something is wrong, but no one acknowledges what it is. So, we children of abuse often conclude that we are the problem.

In so many cases, family members are simply not willing or able to look at the heinous truth. They do not possess the strength or willingness to accept that sexual abuse was perpetrated within the family. It stands to reason that once their eyes are open to the truth, they would have an obligation to deal with its implications. This means holding abusers accountable, listening to victims’ feelings no matter how uncomfortable it makes them, reckoning with their own and other people’s mistakes, and admitting dark family secrets.

It requires protecting minors and other vulnerable people from the possibility that abusers might re-offend — or already have.

It means risking other people’s anger and doing the right thing, no matter how difficult. Unfortunately, far too few family members live up to these challenging moral imperatives. Instead, by denying or minimizing the abuse, they find a way to avoid dealing with its widespread and significant implications.

Do the right thing.

B