Damaged Goods
I blankly stare into oblivion not knowing where my world ends and everyone else’s begins.
My crystal castle has been shattered around me.
I hopelessly try to pick up all the pieces before anyone can see.
I should have known better. I should have done better.
My boundaries got fucked, literally.
I couldn’t stop them, even when I asked for help, it hurt.
Death of innocence, death of a life, death of a child-they must all be mourned.
What good am I now? All used and damaged.
Now, I wait in darkness, with only the light of my computer to keep me company.
I sit here trembling in horror like when I was a child.
I cower in fear at every noise, like the child who was bound helplessly in a corner awaiting her attackers.
My skin crawls, if I think of someone touching me.
Stay back. I might break.
I can only hear the hum of my computer and the sobs of a whimpering child pleading to be helped.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Post 4: Poem by Angela Shelton
I can tell by the look in your eyes
That you need to confide
It’s okay now, it’s safe
Our hearts are open wide
Tell me your story
I’ve probably heard it before
Everybody’s got one to tell
And I know you went through hell
So pour it our darling, purge the pain
Holding it inside gives you no more gain
Tell me your story
I’ve heard it before
And after you, there are many many more
All I know is that we’re here right now
Healing is happening, even if you don’t know how
Let’s just be here for a minute
You survived you’re alive and here to tell it
So don’t cry your life away – begin it.
I know the words that you heard
The hurting and the yelling
You believed it was all true
Now it’s like a fog that’s lifting
into repeated pain, you’ve been drifting
I know it
No sense hiding, we’ve all been there before
The tears will change, don’t worry
It’s time to open a whole new door
I know it feels wrong
To have been through it for so long
To have seen what you’ve seen,
There is a reason for it, there must be.
All I know is that we’re here right now
just be here a minute
you survived, you’re alive and here to tell it
Don’t cry your life way - begin it.
Angela Shelton
That you need to confide
It’s okay now, it’s safe
Our hearts are open wide
Tell me your story
I’ve probably heard it before
Everybody’s got one to tell
And I know you went through hell
So pour it our darling, purge the pain
Holding it inside gives you no more gain
Tell me your story
I’ve heard it before
And after you, there are many many more
All I know is that we’re here right now
Healing is happening, even if you don’t know how
Let’s just be here for a minute
You survived you’re alive and here to tell it
So don’t cry your life away – begin it.
I know the words that you heard
The hurting and the yelling
You believed it was all true
Now it’s like a fog that’s lifting
into repeated pain, you’ve been drifting
I know it
No sense hiding, we’ve all been there before
The tears will change, don’t worry
It’s time to open a whole new door
I know it feels wrong
To have been through it for so long
To have seen what you’ve seen,
There is a reason for it, there must be.
All I know is that we’re here right now
just be here a minute
you survived, you’re alive and here to tell it
Don’t cry your life way - begin it.
Angela Shelton
Post 3
When I Dream
When I dream,
I see horrifying things.
Things you can’t imagine,
Things that make me scream.
When I dream,
I remember what was lost.
My innocence, my life
They took from me what I can’t get back.
When I dream,
I see things that haunt me
And things that cause me to cry.
When I dream,
I remember what he took.
He took my trust
He crushed everything I had inside.
When I dream,
The things I see
Make me want to crawl out of my flesh.
I want to scream!
When I wish,
I wish it was all one bad dream.
-Kerry
When I dream,
I see horrifying things.
Things you can’t imagine,
Things that make me scream.
When I dream,
I remember what was lost.
My innocence, my life
They took from me what I can’t get back.
When I dream,
I see things that haunt me
And things that cause me to cry.
When I dream,
I remember what he took.
He took my trust
He crushed everything I had inside.
When I dream,
The things I see
Make me want to crawl out of my flesh.
I want to scream!
When I wish,
I wish it was all one bad dream.
-Kerry
Post 3
THAT FATEFUL NEW YEAR’S DAY
By
Suzanne
(This is copyrighted through A Word With You Press as an Entry to their “A Few Words With You” contest. It is my Story of the day I left my abusive husband.)
I left him on New Year’s Day. I know it was New Year’s Day because I had just celebrated the beginning of 2003 with fireworks and wine. I had to leave. I had no choice. I was lying in a dark hotel room in San Diego, shivering, realizing my marriage was done, in the arms of another man. And I’d just got caught. And there was the chance that my ex-husband was going to kill me. I couldn’t go back to Las Vegas and walk in the house, not alone I wouldn’t. A lot had happened to bring me here.
My marriage had dismantled slowly, in an ugly, disturbing way. The first four years were happy, for the most part. We’d travelled to Hawaii twice, romping around on their exquisite, sunny shores, in awe of the colorful sunsets, mingling orange, purple, reds and yellows. A cruise to Alaska and a week in December in Florida, basking in warmth while the rest of the nation was frozen. We had bought a house in Las Vegas and I’d started a whole new life. He taught me to play poker and I had been a champion. I won a bunch of jackpots playing the poker machines. But there was the truth just bubbling underneath. He snatched me from my hometown and took me to Las Vegas, where I didn’t really know a soul. And the friends I made there I wasn’t allow to see much. He made it clear that they were weird or stupid.
It was the fifth year when it all bubbled up. Everything began to change. My husband’s shady past crept into our lives, and he indulged in it. Criminal dealings, secret meetings, friends who were not friends infiltrated our home and our lives. I awakened every morning to confusion and fear. And I was isolated from the others who lived in their normal suburban homes. I was afraid to tell anyone; whether they would believe me, and if they did, I might end up dead.
So my head went numb and my heart felt dead but I stayed because I was afraid. I tried to leave but he threatened my friends, and it was more important to have them in my life than to leave. When I tried to walk out the door during an argument, he’d grab me, shove me to the floor, and sit on me until I gave up. And I didn’t want to leave my house. I was attached to those four walls, to the staircase, and the balcony off of the main bedroom. It’s funny how much you can attach yourself to a building. And deep down, I still loved him. So I stayed. But the passion was gone and the sex mundane.
And in walked David. He started out a friend, who I could confide in when my world looked about to crumble. He started out cleaning our house then working for my husband in one of his dealings. He became aware of the criminal activities that took place behind the white picket fence and iron-barred doors and windows. He stood outside the door one night when my husband held me on the floor. And after a time, we fell in love, in secret. We shared passion whenever we could, indulged erotic fantasies, and my heart came alive again. My senses were awakened after a year of slumber. My affair with David kept me going. And the rush of forbidden sex, performed under the threat of a death penalty, of getting caught, and never living to tell about it, was like shooting cocaine in my veins.
So I sneaked around behind my husband’s back, uttering excuses of working late, attending a conference, meeting up with other friends. And when he found a hotel key once, I lied it was the key for my locker at the police station. I’d engage in passion, lighting my senses on fire, embracing true love before walking back into the darkness again. And then it happened. And I knew that my life had no choice but to change.
And so on that New Year’s Day, my husband found out, uttered his threats over the phone, and there I sat, isolated and afraid. I was in this hotel room and I couldn’t go home. I didn’t dare set foot in the house in case I never left again. His friends were trying to find me and I was naked, lying in a bed, in the arms of another man. And I was very much afraid.
As much as I was afraid, I felt relief. For the first time, that secret of hiding my love for David in the closet, could now pop out. The ugly secrets of my lonely emotional abuse, the criminal activities that I could never tell, it all could come out now. I could set it free.
I did go back for a time. I went to get my things. I had to take people with me, but I dragged items out, piece by piece, but I left so much behind. I said good-bye to the house I loved, took one last backward glance over the balcony, and drove away. I was starting all over again.
I remember the day I left him, New Year’s Day of 2003, because I began a new year with a whole new life.
By
Suzanne
(This is copyrighted through A Word With You Press as an Entry to their “A Few Words With You” contest. It is my Story of the day I left my abusive husband.)
I left him on New Year’s Day. I know it was New Year’s Day because I had just celebrated the beginning of 2003 with fireworks and wine. I had to leave. I had no choice. I was lying in a dark hotel room in San Diego, shivering, realizing my marriage was done, in the arms of another man. And I’d just got caught. And there was the chance that my ex-husband was going to kill me. I couldn’t go back to Las Vegas and walk in the house, not alone I wouldn’t. A lot had happened to bring me here.
My marriage had dismantled slowly, in an ugly, disturbing way. The first four years were happy, for the most part. We’d travelled to Hawaii twice, romping around on their exquisite, sunny shores, in awe of the colorful sunsets, mingling orange, purple, reds and yellows. A cruise to Alaska and a week in December in Florida, basking in warmth while the rest of the nation was frozen. We had bought a house in Las Vegas and I’d started a whole new life. He taught me to play poker and I had been a champion. I won a bunch of jackpots playing the poker machines. But there was the truth just bubbling underneath. He snatched me from my hometown and took me to Las Vegas, where I didn’t really know a soul. And the friends I made there I wasn’t allow to see much. He made it clear that they were weird or stupid.
It was the fifth year when it all bubbled up. Everything began to change. My husband’s shady past crept into our lives, and he indulged in it. Criminal dealings, secret meetings, friends who were not friends infiltrated our home and our lives. I awakened every morning to confusion and fear. And I was isolated from the others who lived in their normal suburban homes. I was afraid to tell anyone; whether they would believe me, and if they did, I might end up dead.
So my head went numb and my heart felt dead but I stayed because I was afraid. I tried to leave but he threatened my friends, and it was more important to have them in my life than to leave. When I tried to walk out the door during an argument, he’d grab me, shove me to the floor, and sit on me until I gave up. And I didn’t want to leave my house. I was attached to those four walls, to the staircase, and the balcony off of the main bedroom. It’s funny how much you can attach yourself to a building. And deep down, I still loved him. So I stayed. But the passion was gone and the sex mundane.
And in walked David. He started out a friend, who I could confide in when my world looked about to crumble. He started out cleaning our house then working for my husband in one of his dealings. He became aware of the criminal activities that took place behind the white picket fence and iron-barred doors and windows. He stood outside the door one night when my husband held me on the floor. And after a time, we fell in love, in secret. We shared passion whenever we could, indulged erotic fantasies, and my heart came alive again. My senses were awakened after a year of slumber. My affair with David kept me going. And the rush of forbidden sex, performed under the threat of a death penalty, of getting caught, and never living to tell about it, was like shooting cocaine in my veins.
So I sneaked around behind my husband’s back, uttering excuses of working late, attending a conference, meeting up with other friends. And when he found a hotel key once, I lied it was the key for my locker at the police station. I’d engage in passion, lighting my senses on fire, embracing true love before walking back into the darkness again. And then it happened. And I knew that my life had no choice but to change.
And so on that New Year’s Day, my husband found out, uttered his threats over the phone, and there I sat, isolated and afraid. I was in this hotel room and I couldn’t go home. I didn’t dare set foot in the house in case I never left again. His friends were trying to find me and I was naked, lying in a bed, in the arms of another man. And I was very much afraid.
As much as I was afraid, I felt relief. For the first time, that secret of hiding my love for David in the closet, could now pop out. The ugly secrets of my lonely emotional abuse, the criminal activities that I could never tell, it all could come out now. I could set it free.
I did go back for a time. I went to get my things. I had to take people with me, but I dragged items out, piece by piece, but I left so much behind. I said good-bye to the house I loved, took one last backward glance over the balcony, and drove away. I was starting all over again.
I remember the day I left him, New Year’s Day of 2003, because I began a new year with a whole new life.
Post 2
As I crumble into the sea
You take your ship in search of me
Through the enormous waves that engulf my soul
Your caring strength guides me toward the shoal
Upon the sand I start to rise
You begin to hear my unheard cries
You pick me up and pull me to the sky
Out of that storm I am taught to fly
If it weren’t for you I don’t know where I’d be
Probably drowning in the churning sea
Thank you to all the Angels. To all survivors who believe they can't be heard- you can, we hear you.
-Anonymous
You take your ship in search of me
Through the enormous waves that engulf my soul
Your caring strength guides me toward the shoal
Upon the sand I start to rise
You begin to hear my unheard cries
You pick me up and pull me to the sky
Out of that storm I am taught to fly
If it weren’t for you I don’t know where I’d be
Probably drowning in the churning sea
Thank you to all the Angels. To all survivors who believe they can't be heard- you can, we hear you.
-Anonymous
The Beginning
The Beginning
I don’t remember what day of the week it was. But, I remember feeling like I never have before. I guess the first thing to happen was seeing the Oprah episode with Mackenzie Phillips. Don’t ask me why I watched this. I don’t like Oprah, I didn’t really know who Mackenzie was but it caught my interest when they mentioned The Mamas and the Papas and that whole “family secret” thing, that could have just been television drama to get viewers. I watched this show and was speechless. She seemed so together on national TV talking about this. I couldn’t even imagine being in her shoes. Unlike the comments you see on the internet, the first thought in my mind was not that she was trying to make money and ruin her dad’s name. I identified with her for some reason. I could understand why she waited until now to come out with this. I was able to read Mackenzie’s book in October 2009. My therapist noticed that I appeared to be strangely connected to Mackenzie, someone who I knew very little about prior to watching Oprah. I could practically hear myself saying some of the things written in her book. While I did not become a full blown drug addict, likely due to parental intervention and threatening, I used drugs to deal with my life and the problems that I didn’t know were problems. I struggle with self injury and it’s true, addiction is addiction. When I feel like cutting, I try to remember nothing is bad enough that I need to hurt myself. It has been working for the most part and one day I will say this is behind me.
I’m not really sure when I stumbled across Angela Shelton…I think it was in February or March of this year. I should remember the date, like one would remember a sobriety date, because it changed my life. I think I heard about her through someone on the Mackenzie Phillips fan page, but then it gets a little fuzzy. For the longest time, I didn’t think I fit in with this group of people because the things that happened to me were not textbook abuse. I finally decided to share pieces of what happened on other blogathons and people told me I was a survivor. In my heart, I didn’t believe them but I also had some validation for my feelings that I have never had before. When my mother found out about what I was doing, she snubbed her nose and said I wasn’t abused. My dad mocked me. Maybe I wasn’t abused at the hands of a family member, or raped, but I definitely had things happen that have shaped my self esteem and who I am. I have this pull towards some special people I’ve met through Angela Shelton and they know who they are. I’ve learned a lot about not comparing and I know that I wouldn’t have anything in common with these girls had it not been for my past.
SQUISH! -Amy
I don’t remember what day of the week it was. But, I remember feeling like I never have before. I guess the first thing to happen was seeing the Oprah episode with Mackenzie Phillips. Don’t ask me why I watched this. I don’t like Oprah, I didn’t really know who Mackenzie was but it caught my interest when they mentioned The Mamas and the Papas and that whole “family secret” thing, that could have just been television drama to get viewers. I watched this show and was speechless. She seemed so together on national TV talking about this. I couldn’t even imagine being in her shoes. Unlike the comments you see on the internet, the first thought in my mind was not that she was trying to make money and ruin her dad’s name. I identified with her for some reason. I could understand why she waited until now to come out with this. I was able to read Mackenzie’s book in October 2009. My therapist noticed that I appeared to be strangely connected to Mackenzie, someone who I knew very little about prior to watching Oprah. I could practically hear myself saying some of the things written in her book. While I did not become a full blown drug addict, likely due to parental intervention and threatening, I used drugs to deal with my life and the problems that I didn’t know were problems. I struggle with self injury and it’s true, addiction is addiction. When I feel like cutting, I try to remember nothing is bad enough that I need to hurt myself. It has been working for the most part and one day I will say this is behind me.
I’m not really sure when I stumbled across Angela Shelton…I think it was in February or March of this year. I should remember the date, like one would remember a sobriety date, because it changed my life. I think I heard about her through someone on the Mackenzie Phillips fan page, but then it gets a little fuzzy. For the longest time, I didn’t think I fit in with this group of people because the things that happened to me were not textbook abuse. I finally decided to share pieces of what happened on other blogathons and people told me I was a survivor. In my heart, I didn’t believe them but I also had some validation for my feelings that I have never had before. When my mother found out about what I was doing, she snubbed her nose and said I wasn’t abused. My dad mocked me. Maybe I wasn’t abused at the hands of a family member, or raped, but I definitely had things happen that have shaped my self esteem and who I am. I have this pull towards some special people I’ve met through Angela Shelton and they know who they are. I’ve learned a lot about not comparing and I know that I wouldn’t have anything in common with these girls had it not been for my past.
SQUISH! -Amy
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
BLOGATHON!!!! 9/11/2010
Hey all!
A blogathon is where you post blogs for 24hrs straight every half hour to raise money for a cause and ours is for the Survivor Manual. The Survivor Manual is an online help for survivors of abuse in need of comfort or ways to heal from their past. Or to just know that there are others of us out there that understand, that a survivor is Never Alone.Our blogathon is extra special because its also a vlogathon which means you can watch us live for 24 hrs. Which means things will probably get a bit silly! hahaha! So I hope you will stop by! Pease help us in supporting Survivor Manual! www.survivormanual.com
Watch us live here:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/kerrysmiles
Visit the blog here:
http://kerrysmiles.Donate here:
http://www.firstgiving.com/kerrysheehan
This website has resources for survivors of sexual abuse. Please visit the site for more information!
Thanks,
Kerry and Amy
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