Tonight, like many of the nights before it, I do not want to share my story. Do not want to be weak. I am tired, weary, struggling at the weight of my thoughts. Crossroad-ed. Forlorn.
#FREEINFEB was meant to be challenging, but I had no idea it would affect me like this. The walls are heavy and the air is still. Waiting. Neutral. So I let it hang and I ignore it, distracting myself with my need for sleep, tell the healing to wait another day. And another day. And then another.
Today, I will tell you. Somehow, I know it.
My fingers slip across the keyboard and my heart races. Can i really do it? I ask myself; it is the first voice i have heard within me during the last 48 hours that is not condemning my potential decision to share this part of my story.
It’s a narrative that’s more common than you think but people don’t talk about it enough. It’s a sad one, makes us feel helpless, uncomfortable. I can’t even look back at the sentence. And yes I had thought it would be easier to say now that i feel over it.
[hello? can you hear me? what’s your name? hello?]
My memory is foggy and i’m okay with that. I don’t want to remember, can’t remember his face. But i remember the day.
How the sun lit the water,
How the heat hit the trees,
The voices of people around. My excitement to finally learn to swim.
There is something to be said for all the evil that tries to haunt us, bred in the fertile hearts of (wo)men, smeared on their hands and cracked in their prying fingers:
The day my parents found out, i hadn’t even been the one to tell them. And months later, I still didn’t know the extent that those weeks of being violated had on me, until i realised I had become very afraid of water.
Water, that I used to love to play in, bath in, drink.
On day one of a lesson with a new instructor, as soon as he held me over the pool, I screamed. waved my arms. Howled as though the water could burn me.
Years later and the damage manifested itself. My body, I became ashamed of it. The way i felt boys/men looked at it, the way it moved as I walked, the words they said…I felt trapped and awkward, and honestly? Somewhere inside, I believed there had to be a reason why it had happened for as long as it did. It had to be my body’s fault, surely? That a man trusted to teach me what it is to be afloat, very nearly snatched my being from me.
And so i hid myself, not even realising I was doing it. Behind smiles, behind jokes, behind loose clothes, even behind skimpy clothes. I wanted distraction, and so I employed it and mastered it. Kept people at the surface as much as possible, and people loved my surface. i was popular enough, liked, funny…and loud. I valued being alone but when I wasn’t I couldn’t have silences, didn’t want to have to think or focus on my brokenness because really, who had time for that? So I would make all the noise I could just so people wouldn’t really notice me.
And for years, it worked. I thought I was fine with regards to this aspect of my life, but really I hadn’t dealt with it. Almost 13 years past that period of my childhood, even past a loving relationship, I was frightened by water all over again. In an instant, an evening swimming in a shallow pool turned into a panic attack. My heart began to race, my arms were weak, I began to choke on air.
there is nothing beautiful about this part of my story. weeks of abuse led to me developing a deep shame for my body and a damaging un-love for myself. it led to a misconstrued understanding of my self worth and an inappropriate awareness of my sexuality from a young age. my body became a weapon as i grew older, past puberty. I let attention be drawn to it, so long as I believed I could control that attention with the clothes I wore. I became an unapologetic flirt and tease, it was all a game to me.
In the last 5 years, I have learnt that God is a God of heart and of root.
The lessons and seasons He teaches and takes us through? Are ones that strengthen the heart and acknowledge the root. Even after I became a Christian 5 years ago and split up with my boyfriend, I did not love myself. I didn’t even question it - it was just the way things were and what I was comfortable with. My parents loved me, so it definitely wasn’t linked to some kind of deprivation growing up. But God began to reveal some stuff to me. I had yet to do two things: Forgive the man and forgive myself.
[she’s opening her eyes!]
You will never ever be able to love yourself until you forgive yourself for what you hold against yourself.
You will never ever be able to love yourself until you forgive yourself for what you hold against yourself.
I’m sharing this as my story for #FREEINFEB (see previous 2 posts) with you not because I carry this shame any longer, but to tell you that today is everything.
I forgave myself, and it was and still is a process. God has taken that pain and the untruths i had come to associate with water, and He has pointed me towards the real meaning of who I am and the power of life found in water.
He truly is the alpha and omega, creator of all things, patient fighter of all my battles. He is at work especially when we are at falter. He is the victory over our deepest shames. He is the turnaround. He is God.
[yes, i can hear you now].
What shame is it time for you to give over to Him?
