No Scars

I debated doing this today.  Therapy days are tough and trying to share my views on triggering subjects is touch and go.  But the deal is, both mulderfan and Laurel commented this morning on how much easier it is to get sympathy if you could point to the scars and say "they cut me here."  Or I could show them a mangled and twisted leg and say "see how they hurt me."  But that's not what happened.  People in the same house didn't see the strange things that happened behind closed doors.  The cutting remarks that caused my heart to bleed.  The invalidation and gaslighting until I didn't trust myself.  The starvation when there was plenty of food in the house.  The doctor found the bleeding in my stomach from years of not getting the food I needed until I didn't know that my stomach wasn't supposed to hurt like that.  Medication in my 40's I found out that your stomach hurting constantly is not normal.  I still flinch when some people walk past me.  But I have no scars to show.  I have no physical evidence to say, "see here where they hurt me?"  I was told that I exaggerated.  I was told no one likes a fat girl.  I only weighed 125 lbs.  at 5'5".  I was told that I needed to smile and stop feeling sorry for myself.  I was told how I was just not as smart as the others in the family.  But all those things I was told, never showed up with scars where people could see.  Emotional abuse destroys a person from the inside out.  I knew a person that wanted to kill a palm tree while it was small.  She poured boiling water down the center.  She was just watering the plant and it died.  Yea....it died.  The cruelty of emotional abuse left me wishing I could die.  No scars does not mean I wasn't wounded.  I am thankful to KavinCoach for being the good 'emotional heart' doctor that he is.  He also reminded me that my faith in Christ was an important part of my healing.  I knew.  I appreciated him keeping things in perspective.  When I thank him, he would remind me that I did all the work.  I did work hard in the healing process.  I also believe that through spiritual promptings I was led to him to relearn how to live.  To help me to tear out the rotted foundation and build a new foundation where I could thrive.  I am seeing the changes.   I am feeling the difference.  I am rebuilding myself.  I am thankful to my Savior, Jesus Christ.  Hard to explain the connection.  It is that belief in Christ and His love for me that kept me going when giving up was so much easier.