Self Doubt VS Self Worth

I have struggled greatly with self doubt. I often times do not feel like I am "good enough" to do said thing....

I am not sure why I have always doubted what I was capable of... you could probably link it abuse early on, or you could say it came from the media telling me I was not skinny enough or tan enough or fit enough, or maybe it was caused in high school because I didn't quiet fit in with any group of girls.... Who really knows what my self doubt stemmed  from.... I just know, as long as I can remember, I have struggled with doubting what I could accomplish. I have always had poor self esteem and because I lacked the proper view of myself, i felt as if I was not good enough to do anything well.

I can not tell you the number of things I have wanted to do over the years, but have given up on right after starting out of fear, fear of failure, fear of not meeting approval, fear of not living up to what I truly wanted to do. I know, I know..... so stupid, right?? I gave up because I was afraid I would not meet my own expectations... Looking back, I realize just how silly this was.... But in the middle of it, I could not see past my own self doubt. And on to compound it, because of my low self esteem, I found myself in numerous bad relationships, where I was always told I was not good enough.

So.... I had my prior bad experiences telling me I was no good, I had media telling me I was not perfect (far from it actually), I didn't really fit in with a "group", and I had relationship after relationship telling me I could not do anything right or keep anything good.... How was I supposed to view myself in a good light when I had all these other forces fighting against me, breaking me down from the inside....

Now, breaking my self doubt and regaining my self worth did NOT happen over night... although, sometimes it feels like it did... I think I had been slowly getting little pieces of myself back each day.... Then one day, I just realized, I am so much better than what they say I am. I am stronger than they say I am!!!

So, how did I regaining control of myself, build my self confidence back up? It was not really any actions I took.... Weeeeeeelllllllllllllllllllllll, ok......so kicking dirt bags to the curb was a huge step. Not allowing a man who is supposed to be your life mate to physically abuse you helps a ton.... The constant abuse was finally to a point where I stood up and said ENOUGH!!!!!  But after that, it was not really an action changing things.... It is mind set I got into... Have you watched the movie The Help? Where the Aibileen tells the little white girl, "You is Kind! You is Smart! You is Important!"......It was a lot like that... Each morning, and many times throughout the day, I would remind myself, I am important! I have Value! I am better than they think I am!!!! I AM SUPERWOMEN!!!!!!! (being a working single mom I had to tell myself I was superwomen just to help get through the day)......

But the biggest mental tilt came when I had Elijah. Now I am not going to retell that whole story because its to long...But please go back and read Elijah's birthstory if you have not. I was my "LIFE CHANGING EARTH SHATTERING MOMENT!"  Was I really ok with who I was, Would I be happy with what I had accomplished, if in fact I had died? I know that sounds so crazy, but these were real thoughts I had while I was in the hospital missing my brand new baby and all my other babies... Would those babies be proud of what "Legacy" I would leave behind if I did not make it?

My Answer: Absolutely not! I had not accomplished anything! I stood for nothing! I had never fought for anything!!! Things were changing.... right there in the yucky hospital room.... my life was forever changing!!!! At that moment, I seized all of my control back. I grabbed hold of all my self doubt and left it right there in the hospital when I checked out.

I had regained my self worth and valued my life and what I stood for!!! And you better believe I was on a mission to let everyone know!!!!!!!

Movie Date... To real for my own good!!!!

So I read the Nicolas Sparks book, Safe Haven and loved it! In fact, I was amazed by it. The author has a way with his words, sending you right to the spot, making you feel all the feelings.... I am mesmerized when an author can do this....

The little kids were out of town, being over-indulged by their "Disneyland Dad", and Preston wanted to go to the movies... We had already missed the start of his movie, so we went to see Safe Haven! I was thrilled!!!! Honestly, I was so excited to see this movie because it really hit home with me on the Domestic Violence issue....

What happened next I was absolutely not expecting....(and luckily Preston was so engrossed in his popcorn and candy that he didn't notice!)...  I have been out of my situation for 6.5 years and happily married for 3 years next month, now that is not to say the abuse stopped 6.5 years ago, but I removed myself from the house then. I had read the book, read the abuse, knew the pain and the fear, the shear terror the character was going to face.... I was prepared for it! Little did I know, that seeing the images of real live people in these situations as opposed to words on a page, would send me into panic attacks.... Full blow panic attack right there in the theater, even though I knew it would all end ok. I couldn't breath, my chest was tight, my hands were sweating.... I couldn't believe I was reacting like this after so long...

After we were home, something set me off; a smell, a sound.... I am not sure what it was but I had a flashback and was terrified that he was here to hurt me, even though I knew full well he was out of town with my children...

Flashbacks and panic attacks are very common among victims of trauma or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder victims. Flashback is described as a sudden and disturbing vivid memory of an event in the past, typically as the result of a psychological trauma.



I was shaking, felt like I was spinning, I was starting to slip for the reality that was right in front of me, that I was safe in my own house, without "him"..... I felt like I had no control over it....

During my abuse, I told no one. I put a wall around me and I didn't allow anyone in to see my reality, my pain, my horror I was enduring every day. To survive, I shut that part of my feelings off, I locked them away, because to get through the day, I had to "pretend" or tell myself everything was ok... After I had moved out but long before the emotional abuse and stalking ended, I began having flashbacks. Vivid surreal visions of everything happening all over again.




Since then, I have began to heal.... Actually I have come a long way in the healing process... I "usually" no longer have flashbacks (this movie being the exception....) I don't have panic attacks anymore, although I do get very stressed if I have to do a visitation exchange alone with "him"....

Here are some tips to help with Flashbacks/Panic Attacks

~Tell yourself this isn't happening, that you are having a flashback

~Tell yourself that you already survived this! These are memories and although bad, you are past it and you are no longer in that situation! Celebrate that you are free from this!

~Ground Yourself. Remind yourself you are in the Present, not the Past Memory. Stomp your feet, splash water on your face, step outside.... Try to bring yourself back to the now... You freed yourself from the abuser!!!

~Breathe!!!!! Take some good, deep, cleansing breaths!!! As a result of stress we tend to hold our breath. Panic sets in from lack of oxygen. Pounding head, dizziness, sweating, faint feeling and shakiness are symptoms of lack of oxygen but add to the panic feeling....

~ See you are safe. Look around the room. Notice the pictures, the colors, the textures. See that your abuser is not there, that you are safe.

~Give your self a boundary. This will help you to feel like your not crawling out of your skin. Put on a hoody, wrap yourself in a blanket, sit in a smaller space, let yourself feel protected from the outside.

~Get Support. Even if you want/need to be alone, it's important to let people close to you know what you are going through so they can help you with the process. You can ask them to be with you or to give you some space, but either way, don't keep it bottled up.

~Take some time to recover.... Take a bath, lay down, have some hot tea..... Take some time to relax, what you just felt was traumatic and exhausting.

~Celebrate that YOU SURVIVED this horrible experience! You are strong!!!!

~Be patient with yourself. It takes time to heal. What you have gone through was horrific. Take care of yourself, of your feelings!!!

The Real Ugly Stuff.... Not a Flowery Fun Post

This is not a pretty post... but this is my life. This is what I lived. Please read with my heart in mind. This is my first time sharing my story, even with most of my family....


                                                  

You know, you would think having a fever the morning of your shitty wedding would be a sign as to the atrocities that would ensue over the next two years… but naïve me… I thought I could make it work anyway. I knew walking down the stairs to get into the limo what a stupid mistake I was making but I just kept walking. I could kick myself for that in retrospect!!!! I stood there through the generic ceremony, wishing I could crawl in a hole. I was standing up for this supposed monumental day to profess my love for this man, who I already could hardly stand, in front of all my family and friends and all I remember thinking was that the minister would hurry up and get to the end so my friends and family would stop judging me. Peyton was crying, no wait, screaming so hard that she couldn’t even catch her breath. This little baby, all of 3 months old, knew enough to protest this wedding to her own father and I couldn’t bring myself to let those words come out of my mouth. We were getting married for the shear reason that this little girl shared both our sets of DNA. What a moronic reason to legally bind yourself to another human being.  I walked down the dusty rocky path to no music, with no father at my side, trying to talk myself out of what I was doing with no avail.  The façade of a wedding was over after approximately ten minutes.  I can’t even recall actually saying the dreaded cliché words “I do” or anything vaguely reassembling the phrase. To the best of my recollection, the minister said a Native Indian prayer, turned and looked at the dreadful thing that was about to become my spouse, and said “You may kiss the bride.” It was over. There was no turning back now. I was legally bound to this disgusting puke that called himself a man.  You see, I had already been with this idiot for a year by this point. I was under no disillusion of what he really was now. The pretty polish had chipped and cracked off. What was now my reality was a worn, callused, dried up piece of wood. You know how a weathered deck looks after 30 plus years… the boards are warped and separated. There are large gaps between the boards and rusty rings around the old nails holding it down. If you stepped out on it barefoot you would be sure to have a large splinter embedded in the sole of your foot. The wood is so rough and jagged that slivers were everywhere. This was now my reality. This was the thing I was now married to.

Everyone came up to pay their respects as if they were at a wake for a dear friend. Little did I know at the time how frighteningly close I actually was to come to this. We all had dinner and way too much alcohol. For the most part the guests enjoyed themselves, although I can only speculate at the horrid thoughts that were actually going through their minds at the time. The party fizzled down, the guests left. I clung to the last few guests as if they were my life preservers and I was stranded in the Pacific Ocean, while he and his mother circled around me like Great White Sharks, waiting for my grasp to slip just a little, looking for a second of vulnerability, so they could swarm in and make their kill.  Could this really be it? Did I really settle for this?

The next two months went rather smoothly in comparison.  I should have seen it coming though. It was just the calm before the storm. Every weather man or storm chaser knows there is a huge lull right before a huge tornado blows through.  I was sitting directly in the storms path.  Just on the horizon I could see it start churning and growing dark. I grew cautious of my actions. I was beginning to not have a clue as to what would set him off.  One day it could be that I forgot to get paper towels at the store, the next day it could be that my tires were not parallel with the frame of my car when I parked. I know these don’t sound like monumental issues but you put the power of a tornado behind them and anything seems big. Each day the small things seemed bigger and bigger until I couldn’t see anymore. He was causing me to have distorted vision. I was seeing everything as a potential major issue.

And then it happened. I didn’t actually even see it coming. It was a Thursday in the end of September. We were standing in the kitchen and his Dad was sitting in my living room.  He was mad that he had to watch the baby so I could go to back to school night.  It was his baby for goodness sake! I turned to grab my keys off the counter when it crashed into my cheek like a thousand bees all stinging me at the same time. He had backhand slapped me across the face.  “What the fuck was that for??” came flying out of my mouth before my cautious mind could stop it…. And the next thing I knew, this miserable piece of work had his hands around my neck. He was choking me so hard that I could feel his fingernails breaking through the skin on my neck. I was praying a child would not walk around the corner and that his dad would. He kept squeezing and squeezing….my ears were ringing… I needed a deep breath but I couldn’t get one… It was starting to get a little hazy around the edges….fading into black…. I could hear the TV but it sounded like it was in a tunnel…. Blacker…Hazier…..  And then I hit the floor, it all went black……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………   Was someone crying, I had to open my eyes and see where the baby was? She sounded hurt, funny but hurt. I lay there, on the floor for a minute more, just listening to her crying, and then I realized it wasn’t her crying. I was listening to myself cry.  How crazy and surreal it was to lay there on my own kitchen floor gasping for breath, fighting the tight pain in my throat, and listen to myself cry. I managed to sit up when the tight pain grew into more of an immense fire. I glanced around to survey the room. Had this all really just happened? Had my husband just laid his hands on me while his dad listened from the other room without an objection?  The anxiety attack that was growing in my chest told me that it did. I managed to pull myself to my feet after a few more minutes. My head was screaming by this point. My brain was threatening to pop out of my ears and my eyeballs, the pressure was intense. I was having a hard time getting air into my lungs because I was afraid he waiting around the corner to come at me again. Had he just tried to kill me or was he just roughing me up? I was reeling in the moment of all of this.  I managed to walk to the back bedroom without him seeing me. In fact I had no idea where he was. I locked the bedroom door and listened for a second for a sign he had heard the twist of the cylinder keeping him on the other side of the door from me. I heard nothing.  I finally a deep breath raged but deep breath. I turned around to face a tear stained beat-up little girl in the mirror.  Honestly I didn’t even recognize myself. I was still the same 23yr old that I was when I sat in front that same mirror 12hrs prior to get ready for the day. But I couldn’t see myself in that beat-up little girl. I looked at the outline of a handprint in red across my cheek. I ran my fingers across the welts. They were hot to the touch. Burned in my memory forever. My fingers slid down my cheek, across my jawbone, to the raw open gashes that were now etched in my neck. I had four clean gashes in my neck from his fingernails. My neck would later bruise with the clear imprint of his hand, four fingers on one side and his thumb on the other, eerily seeming to still squeeze my trachea.   

How was I going to hide these marks? I was I going to hide this horrid part of my life from everyone I love? How could I pull this off? I had to be at the school in thirty minutes. I quickly washed my face in icy water in hopes to cool the tendrils of fiery sting his slap had left across my cheek.  I covered up the remains with makeup. As for my neck, there would be no way to cover it up with makeup, it was raw and bleeding. I went to the closet to pull out my winter clothes. I had to find a turtle neck to conceal what was now my life.  I slipped a black and grey sweater over my head and onto my ripped open neck. With searing pain I slid the neck part into place. I pulled my hair out of the ponytail and fluffed it over my shoulders. I grabbed a pair of sunglasses out of the cabinet and pushed them on.

Out the door I went. I was ashamed of every event that had just taken place. I really wanted to bury my head in the sand and not face the world right then, but as a mother you still have obligations you must meet even when you are a battered wife. I should have driven straight to the police station. To this day I have no idea why I didn’t other than just being so humiliated by the whole repulsive night, and wanting to maintain some little sense of normalcy for my sake and my childrens. I pulled up to the school. The sun was going down so I had to lose the glasses. The other moms were sure to see I had been crying but oh well. Not much else I could do at that point.  I sat through the whole presentation, afraid to move and be noticed by the other moms, afraid to go home.  

Sad to say, but this was only the FIRST time of hundreds I would find my self in this horrid situation created by the repulsive man over the next 700 plus days I stayed in this volatile situation.... 

But I eventually found my voice.  I stood up for myself, I stood up for my children. I waited for the perfect time. And then I RAN... I took my babies and a couple laundry baskets of clothes for them and I RAN with all of $20.00 in my pocket. But I was free of his grasp.... so I thought...

I later turned to Shasta Women's Refuge for help. I obtained a Restraining Order against him, but even his uneducated self found a way to slither around the restrictions of the RO and the wording the Police Department could enforce. He stalked me, threatened me and continuously uses my sweet babies as bargaining chips...He is now harassing me with the court system. Any time I rub him the wrong way or annoy him, he files paperwork against me (that is always dismissed but causes me to great inconvenience to continuously show up to these ludicrous court dates) If you are needing help, here is the website for the Refuge.... 
http://www.shastawomensrefuge.org/index.php

I am much stronger now, though. I have started working towards helping other women find their strength and their voice.
http://www.shastafjc.org/Shasta_Family_Justice_Center/VOICES_Against_Family_Violence_Committee.html


I was recently interviewed for an article that appeared in The Redding Record Searchlight regarding Domestic Violence. Here is a link to the articles that were printed today..... 

http://www.redding.com/news/2013/jan/05/violence-often-escalates-in-domestic-cases/

http://www.redding.com/news/2013/jan/05/shasta-county-organizations-target-areas-high/