Candid Truth and Rawness
by Jamie Fletcher
This may be lengthy. But I’ll write candidly and authentically as possible from my heart. I owe myself that much as to speak truthfully of my experience and feelings, while not giving a damn about impressing others or getting their approval. The reason for such thought is that I was reading past emails tonight and that made me reflect.
The emails were between me and people I’ve deeply loved and cared for in my life. I wrote the letters years ago. I’m going back 2012, 2013, 2014 to review words I wrote from my heart and with deep concern. And then I awaited a response and the response I got wasn’t what I expected or could have hoped for. The responses were lacking much in the way of compassion, love, care or concern from people I would have died for at the time. I read through the heartless messages and realized how much I invested myself into these relationships but never were they equally balanced but far from.
I realize now, after decades of inner turmoil and pain that I’ve experienced, how I looked at my relationships in the past, and how they have changed throughout the years. These interactions resulted in trauma for me personally and eventually became a distant memory that haunted me for many years after the relationships were over.
I used to dwell on the past quite a lot. Regretting how I might have gone wrong, and wondering what I could have possibly done to become the better person or the mother I could have been. I held a heaviness in my heart for a past divorce but internally I knew I left for reasons that would never permit me to blame myself entirely because I was unhappy where I was. The marriage was draining me. It felt like I wasn’t growing spiritually, mentally or emotionally, and when I finally stood up for myself by leaving … I was criticized, judged harshly and blamed tirelessly for my choices that ultimately were about myself not the people that condemned me.
I made some poor choices in my life. I’ve done things I could have done quite differently. I held myself accountable to the point that I lost all self worth, and I forgot who I was. I then allowed others to cast their stones. They pointed fingers but never learned to forgive or put the past behind them with intention to heal. It was as if they thrived off of holding hatred towards me. Something I could not understand. I apologized wholeheartedly and then did it again, and again, and again, and again. Until I realized they would have crucified me like Jesus, had I allowed it.
Then one day, I realized that enough was enough. I said my peace. I had tried to make amends. When I was diagnosed with lymphoma (blood cancer), they didn’t wish me healing but told me they didn’t care weather I lived or died. These were my first two born sons. And it hit me, just how they looked at me. Despite that they pretended to care for so long. It took me decades to realize the reality I was living, and just how I had convinced myself to believe our relationship was one way, when it wasn’t even close. I wanted to believe the best in them. I wanted to believe my sons were perfect in every way. My eyes opened.
It wasn’t just the experience with my sons that awakened me eventually. The much broken relationship with my ex husband, and later my first born daughter shook my world too. A man that I trusted and thought was trustworthy and good, turned out to be very different than how I had initially perceived him to be. His character had become quite different from what I knew initially. In the end, I realized that I was more likely divinely led out of that relationship.
Sometimes God redirects us to protect us. And sometimes we are isolated for our own protection as well. That’s exactly what happened to me.
The divorce happened and people who I treated as me family pulled away. I lived a hermit type life for years. This led me to seek inwardly. Eventually those people in my past forget me entirely. And while in my own life, I went through intense emotional turmoil, trauma, depression, isolation and then much needed healing. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t pretty. The recovery from trauma that resulted in permanent brain damage required me decades of therapy, dedicated self-healing and recovery that was slow and painful.
The shadows I faced within myself, and the internal depths I was forced to endure and examine within myself were very intense. I had several Dark Nights of the Soul. I had a few catastrophic episodes that put me in the psyche ward twice. I’d endured abusive relationships with two men after I turned twenty-five. And I never realized initially just what damage such relationships could have caused me. I lived with narcissistic people that had perfected their gaslighting techniques, and then used me to project on. But I lived through these experiences without realizing the seriousness of what I was experiencing until it was too late, the damage was done.
I’m grateful today for everything I’ve been through in my life so far. It took me to go through it all to realize who I am. I had to remember who I was and realize what I had become. The past helped to build me internally and make me stronger. I learned to have courage and determination to overcome some of the most horrendous things.
I saw people for who they were, although this sometimes took decades before I learned to look back and reflect on the events that happened in order for me to see the truth, and the light in the darkness. People I trusted betrayed me. In times that I was already down, they took their foot and pushed me down further. With intention and hate, they seemed to rise the further I fell. I watched and learned.
God’s rejection is my protection. I believe that but didn’t always. Now I look at how many times was I brought through life events in order to move me out of a position that I was in, and into safety. How our Creator literally surrounded me with angels, guides and ancestors while the old was washed away and my life became anew.
God is grand. God is capable. God knows and is witness to everything we live through. God sees all. God hears all. God knows our heart. God loves us. God is concerned with our well being and wants the very best for us always. But many times, it is us that chooses our own path, and we make decisions based on our immediate desires rather than relying on God’s will and intentions for us. We are human and this is the difference between us and our Father.
I AM blessed to be me. I am so thankful. All Glory goes to God in my life for everything I’ve experienced and witnessed. It’s my honor to live my life for His glory and this is where I stand. I know that God has a perfect plan for us all. I trust that even though things in my life didn’t unfold the way I had expected them to, there is more to every situation and I don’t know the divine plan ultimately intended. But I trust it’s better than anything that I could ever imagine myself.
