Silence is not always Golden

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim; accept no ones definition of your life; define yourself."
~Harvey Fierstein...thanks to my friend.

 Thank you to my blogging friends for speaking up when silence is not OK.   

Over at Diary of a Scapegoat http://diaryofascapegoat.blogspot.com/2011/11/amazing-post-over-at-emerging-from.html she shared a link to a great article on when people tell you to "get over it", "put it behind you", or my favorite when they, the abuser, tell you to "forgive and forget."  One thing I have noticed that the person most likely telling me this is the person that hurt me in the first place.  They don't want to be held accountable for their actions so they expect me to be quite and go about my life since they did.  I am now in my 9th year of counseling.  Yes, I have been asked more than once when I would be able to "move on" with my life.  More than once I thought I had gotten to that point, then too much happens and I have another internal melt down.  I feel so discouraged.  I was given all sorts of advice and most of it I had no idea how to accomplish what they suggested.  

Counseling with KavinCoach changed my life.  He listened.  He thought carefully about what I said.  Then he would ask me to watch a movie or read a book and come back and report what I thought about it.  He encouraged me to think things through for myself and to come to my own conclusions.  He guided me.  But reminded me that I was the one deciding where I went with my life.  Most importantly he expected me to talk and talk and talk.  I remember early on in the counseling that he would get frustrated with me for practicing what I would say.  He wanted me to talk spontaneously.  One day he took me off subject into an area we had not previously discussed and I had not practiced.  I started talking then my voiced trailed away and finally I could open and shut my mouth but no sound emerged.  He saw on my face the look of panic and frustration as the words screaming inside would not come out.  One of the few times his counselor face slipped and he showed shock.  He realized, I really couldn't say some things without practicing over and over again.  I still struggle with saying things out loud.  I am learning to write how I feel and think.  This blog has become my voice.  

Now my theory is a bit different than many that I have read.  I do not believe that God gave me child abuse to make me stronger.  However, I do believe that God understands that crap happens.  He hopes that I can find some way to make something good come out of it.  I can not change my past.  I have no idea what kind of person I would have been without being physically, verbally, emotionally, spiritually, and sexually abused.  It happened.  End of sentence.  I am like the little boy in Dr. Banks speech about the difference between an optimist and pessimist.  The pessimist was given a room full of toys and he disparaged all the junk and snarled at the world.  The optimist was given a pile of manure.  When the parents checked on him they found him digging in the manure.  He exclaimed, "With this much crap, there must be a pony in here some where."  Crap happened, by damn, I going to find some kind of use for it somewhere.