Tedder's Blog, page 9

Mirror Mirror | A Perfect Daugther

Introspection — what better way to start a week.

Question: Don’t we all want to be a good son or daugther?

What happens when that means I need to be disobedient to my parents’ rules to survive? What if my speaking up goes against everything they taught me? What if my needs now must surface in order to move forward?

I truly would like to be a good daugther. For me, that won’t work with the rule book I’ve been given. Breaking the family code has meant an utter abandonment by them all.

I walk alone now without a brother, a sister, a father or a mother.

I’d choose it all again because I not only survive now, I actually live. I know what it feels like to have a choice in a matter, to pick and choose what is good for me. That’s freedom.

And I don’t truly walk alone. At first it felt as if I would. Today, I realize the amazing gifts I have left around. Beautiful children and grandchildren, a husband I adore, and friends that mean the world to me.

Nope — I won’t ever be a perfect daughter but the loss of those relationships isn’t as grand as the moments I live today outside of the choas, the guilt, and the shame.

Ask yourself this question: What does that title really give you? Is it worth it?

#UCU

Healing Each other, Healing Ourselves

I’m miles and miles beyond where I was in the beginning of my healing.

I’m past the highest point I thought was even possible! For a long time, getting & staying sober was as lofty as my longings could get.

But each time I was able to make a breakthrough and change, and grow in my capacity to love people and listen to them and be caring toward them, I’d think “hey, I’m pretty ok at this!”

I came to love myself. And when I love myself, I’m a lot more at ease about other people. So it’s a positively reinforcing cycle. I couldn’t love myself when I was focused only on my feelings and MY hurts. I had to step up. 

This is when my spirituality went from a vague idea into the very source of strength I needed to hang in there with the changes I was making.

I’d have trudging periods where I was trying and trying, and not seeming to get anywhere. And then I’d have periodic bursts of healing. And it continues to this day, more love for others, more love for myself, more love for the fact that I’m alive, and for that Power that created me and that animates me and all living things around me — and the rocks and clouds too!

We’re all in this together. I’m part of it, and you are too. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. You have precious intrinsic worth and you are worthy to be loved. And, if you’re like every person alive, especially those of us with Childhood PTSD, you may sometimes be a little hard to love.

That’s what we do in our tough moments — we push people away. But we also heal and love and flourish. So don’t get too wrapped up in the struggle, don’t go hating yourself over mistakes and things you can’t help.

Keep your eyes on who you aim to be, and keep working on it. Be honest with yourself, be persistent and do your best every day.

B

Do Dreams Warn Us?

“I had another significant dream in my early twenties that began to unravel his cold love for me. In this dream, my father was holding an exaggeratedly large syringe. With Dad being a diabetic, I was used to seeing syringes, but not of this size. On the side, in very large writing, were the words: “LOVE SERUM.”

Dad took my forearm. He brought the syringe close, with the needle’s plunger up and ready to deliver.

I awoke in dread and confusion. The dream was with me that next morning and I tried to explore its meaning. Clearly this contrived love between my father and I was not right. This was not the natural love a child holds for a parent. His gripping control enveloped every bond we shared.

That same day, I walked to my mailbox and opened its door to discover a letter inside. It was from my father. After my marriage, he and I had been somewhat estranged. This letter was the first Dad had ever written to me. I opened it up and found cash tucked between the pages. I put the money aside and started to read. It was a love letter. His words beckoned my return to him, to our love. He reminded me how much I meant to him, how life without me wouldn’t be as good. Then, he wrote, “I’ve done nothing to harm you.” The background music underlying his words of love ended, abruptly. The warning of the dream I had the very night before shouted at me not to listen to his words. The dream tried to persuade me, even before the arrival of the letter, that this love serum my father built me for, would ultimately take my life if I accepted it.”

From A Prisoner by No Crime of My Own. Want more?

Comfort Zones

When I was on drugs, sometimes it would occur to me, that I was using them, in part, so that I didn’t have to face taking true risks and failing. I could always blame drugs on the fact that I wasn’t fulfilling my potential. I knew it deep in my heart and it would shock me awake for just a second … long enough to feel a sense of dread and panic.

The thing is: you don’t need to drugs to avoid taking risks and fulfilling your true potential. You can use almost any excuse in the book – work, past traumas, kids, financial problems, etc etc.

The inescapable truth for everyone is that you will not fulfill your purpose in life without stepping outside your comfort zone.

You’ll never know what you are capable of if you give in to fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

This is hard for survivors of sexual abuse, because we never got that fundamental foundation that allows most other people the freedom of initial safety & the courage to take risks. For a long time, I waited for someone to give me a sense of what I was missing from my childhood. But it never happened. It never will. Nearly everything I’ve built within, has ultimately come from within.

I have a couple mottos in life – one of them relate to this idea- ‘Embrace what you don’t know’. I try to push myself so hard that the person I was last year is almost unrecognizable to me. Not in a fundamental sense, just in the way that I’ve taken new risks, made mistakes, felt growing pain, pushed myself beyond what I thought I was capable of.

And each year, I look back, astounded. It is such a cool way to live.

If you want more out of life you have to push your boundaries.

No this doesn’t mean you have to jump off cliffs or go skydiving, oftentimes it’s little changes or action steps that can make a big change.

Wake up earlier and follow a morning routine.

Spend more time outside.

Count your steps and move your body more.

If there is something that you feel hesitant to do at all, that is probably your sign to push through and do it.

Your comfort zone feels easy. So if life seems too easy lately, challenge that.

B

Mirror Mirror | Waves of Discovery

Introspection — what better way to start a week.

Question: When you are faced with a truth, you must decide how to respond to that information.

Will you deny what you know your mind, body and soul is speaking to you? Or will you lean in and with graced be kind to that returning memory?

You want the rat race in your mind to end? Take the rat off the wheel of denial.

My dreams no longer return the murder to me. My heart is not deafened by pain today. I’ve given myself a map of clearance and I’m just so thankful I chose the road less traveled.

#UCU

Fear Not Friday | Stand Up for Yourself

I’ve told my story time and time again. Every single time I have fear. I tell my story anyway.

The woman my father murdered in front of me in 1968 – I’ve told that story, too. Now, over half a million people have been a witness to that atrocity.

Praise God! Because he loves and lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he loves, my fear is receeding.

I can’t change my past or bring the dead lady back to life, but – by God, I can tell the story.

Tell someone — anyone, your story. It’s your God-given right!!! It will help set you free from the pain and turmoil of your past. I promise you.

Break Free

Acknowledging the truth of our story is terrifying.

Thinking differently from the rest of the world is terrifying.

But it is time to take this seriously. The only way we will wake up as a human race is if enough of us wake up and start holding abusers accountable.

Living outside of the fear and denial is incredibly powerful and one of the most liberating things we can accomplish.

So many of us are are programmed to believe the lies instead of the truth.

Why?

The lies are much more convenient.

They make the world look less harsh.

They make horrible abuses disappear.

They make the powerful look like good people.

They give us a false sense of security too.

But under the surface, they don’t reduce our fear. They increase it. Deep down, we know the truth. And we know the blinders we are wearing can cause us more harm than good.

So we need to stop believing the lies because it feels better on the surface. We need to start believing the stuff that is hard to hear. We need to start believing the real truth from ourselves and others. We have to start believing the victims of horrible crimes and abuses.

They are not hallucinating.
They are not in need of meds. They are not lacking credibility. They are extremely brave.

And choosing to ignore or invalidate them is retraumatizing to them and the human race. The truth has to come out.

It is time for change. It’s time to stop protecting the wrong people by participating in a abuser-enmeshed society.

It is time to question the fear-based choices of everyone around us. We have been given everything we need to break free.

B

Words of Widsom ~ Pedophiles Don’t Love You

I sat against the wall perched on my bed now in darkness. Mangled shadows danced all around me, mocking any peace I could try to find. I could not close my eyes to the monstrous darkness. I just could not. I simply stared at the door. Possibly in anticipation of someone coming to find me, or, more likely, someone else coming to hurt me.

I spent many hours with these memories. I chatted with my therapist about why I continued to see that hallway. The scene wouldn’t leave my mind’s eye.

Finally, in fully kindness and authority, Redmond spoke these words that released that memory. “Jodie, you have to tell that little girl that no one is coming.”

That broke my heart again, but it set that moment free for me. As I’d waited that night in 1968 for the morning light to peak its glorious head through my curtains, I learned I was still waiting, the only difference was that I could now let go of that hope.

No one was ever coming. But at last, I could rest.

From the book A Prisoner by No Crime fo My Own, Chapter 17, Murder – A Flip Book

Don’t believe the lie that you are in a secret love affair with them. That you somehow found love in the childhood sexual abuse that you didn’t have somewhere else. That’s a lie. They didn’t even like you. When you like someone, you don’t treat them that way. Period!

Sick as Your (Family) Secrets

Were you raised in an abusive family? 

Did selfish, abusive or sadistic parents sit at the head of your family table? Did evil permeate your daily childhood existence?

The price we pay to stay connected to our abusers is almost impossible to quantify. The immense burden of carrying around families secrets is a weight so strong it will pull you straight to the bottom of a poisoned well. Once you are there…it is very hard to climb out of. For many, they stay, entombed in fear, living their life submerged, without breath, trapped.

When we are raised in these diabolical family systems, secrets become a fundamental part of the way we live.

We have to keep secrets from the monsters above us, and we have to hold on to their secrets too.

It was wrong then. It’s wrong now.

For you to move forward, to lift that weight off of your chest, you’re going to have to learn how to be honest about yourself, your life, and what you have experienced in the past.

The time for secret keeping is over. It’s time to tell your truth and to acknowledge what happened then, what’s happening now, and what’s going to happen to your tomorrow.

B

Sick as your (family) secrets

Were you raised in an abusive family? 

Did selfish, abusive or sadistic parents sit at the head of your family table? Did evil permeate your daily childhood existence?

The price we pay to stay connected to our abusers is almost impossible to quantify. The immense burden of carrying around families secrets is a weight so strong it will pull you straight to the bottom of a poisoned well. Once you are there…it is very hard to climb out of. For many, they stay, entombed in fear, living their life submerged, without breath, trapped.

When we are raised in these diabolical family systems, secrets become a fundamental part of the way we live.

We have to keep secrets from the monsters above us, and we have to hold on to their secrets too.

It was wrong then. It’s wrong now.

For you to move forward, to lift that weight off of your chest, you’re going to have to learn how to be honest about yourself, your life, and what you have experienced in the past.

The time for secret keeping is over. It’s time to tell your truth and to acknowledge what happened then, what’s happening now, and what’s going to happen to your tomorrow.

B