I had a bit of a writer’s breakdown last night.  I was messaging with a friend on facebook and it went a little like this:

“Will you be my writing mentor?”

“Of course”

“Because my writing sucks”

“I am sure it doesn’t suck”

“ALL I WRITE is my story”

You have the cliffs notes there, but the synopsis of the conversation was that all I write is my story and I feel like I need to start writing more topical posts.

However I got to thinking later about my blog, why I started it and why right now sharing my story is so important.

I grew up in an incredibly abusive, dysfunctional home environment.  It didn’t matter if I was with my mom and step dad or if I was at my dad’s.  I was being abused and mistreated.

I was either told not to tell or just figured that what I was going through was normal so speaking up wasn’t an option.

I always felt disconnected from everyone around me.  I never really had any friends; usually I was being bullied and sought refuge in the few I found.  I would draw close to teachers that I felt were safe and mother-like to me because they felt safe as well.

It was more about safety than it was about telling.  I didn’t know that what was going on was abusive.  I didn’t even know that abusive when I became an adult.  I didn’t remember a lot and like I said it was my normal.  When I started therapy three years ago that veil dropped and I saw the truth.

Things with my dad always felt uncomfortable but I didn’t remember the abuse until I started to heal.  That made a big difference in being able to see why I couldn’t tell anyone, I never really knew what was going on.  I had some memories but not enough to substantiate as a child what was going on.

My trauma was expressed in my behavior and I was treated accordingly.  Unfortunately that was unpleasant and added more trauma.

I was still never able to articulate to anyone what really happened.  What it was like.  The people I did tell were my junkie friends and we were usually trading “who had the worse childhood” stories.

Last summer when I took Story 101 something shattered inside me.  Like a sledge hammer to a glass sculpture and a million pieces went everywhere and inside that sculpture was my voice.  Tied to my voice was my story.  It was time.

It was time to start speaking, sharing and no longer keeping the hidden things hidden.

I had started two other blogs but I never kept up on them and truthfully I never had any readers so one is dormant and the other is a picture dump spot.

This one, this one though it where my soul goes to fly.  Where I have found that place to bare who I am to all of you.  And I realized that it’s okay if right now all I share is my story.

I figure there will come a day when topical items are something I am able to focus on and share, I do have a few half written pieces in my writing file but when I get to the halfway point they just go south and I cannot seem to finish them.

Here though I don’t have to be tough and pretend I am ok when I am not.  I don’t have to be the girl who layered on black eye liner and had black hair so that people would think she was tough.  I don’t have to be the midriff baring Zippo lighter carrying beach bum I tried to be.

I can be me, Bethany telling you who I was and who I want to become.

I don’t want to hold onto the shattered pieces anymore and writing about them is like flinging them into the ocean of God’s grace.  I don’t have feel the glass from the shattered pieces digging into my skin anymore, because once they are on the page they don’t dig in as much.

I am thankful for you all who read my words, who hold them and who offer me words of comfort when I write things like my last blog post when I was really feeling hit hard.

Writing my story is like allowing that Bethany girl to say what happened to her when her abusers would never let her speak.

It’s removing that hand from over her mouth and looking them in the eye and saying:

“You don’t get to make my choices anymore.  I get to talk now.”

It takes back the power from them and puts it in my hands.

It gives the ashes beauty and makes the soot I sit in sometimes have purpose.

As Always,

Bethany

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