Stop and Go

Like most bloggers I started out with big dreams and intentions for All Things Truthful.  I wrote a big chunk of my story here over a solid two year window.  I shared things I might otherwise have not, given that I share things better in the written word.

I haven’t posted anything since October.  It’s not just that I have been experiencing significant resistance, and life altering changes.  I was told that my blog was being read by people who consider my writing heinous, ugly, lies.

I don’t write for anyone but myself and like Anne Lamott says

“If people wanted me to write better about them, they should have behaved themselves”

That goes along with the mission set forth when I started this blog.  I do come here vulnerable, bare and incredibly raw sometimes.  Like I stated above I have shared intimate parts of my story here.  There is a twofold reason for that.

One, I believe that it’s time to share my story.  To write about the things that I have been through as a way of processing them, bringing them into the light, and if it so happens helping someone else.

Two, I am a writer, down to my bones.  I know how to tell stories.  I know how to write the bare naked truth of my past as well as writing about things that are important to me, whether they are fictional stories, poetry or bringing in a guest writer to give them a platform they might not otherwise hatopve.

I will be honest and say that a big reason why I haven’t written or posted anything is because I don’t want to be accused of lying, or spreading malicious rumors about people.  I haven’t done any of that.  It’s all about perception and the perception that some people have is that I created a false, trauma filled past to get attention.

To hear that, hurts.  It negates every single trauma I experienced.  I have no reason to lie about anything that has happened in my life.  That would actually be sick and twisted for someone to make up such grandiose lies in order to gain attention, a following or…….

I don’t even know.

It has kept me from my passion though; the fear of what will be said or received has shut my mouth and kept the pen on the table.  I decided that I am not going to live with that fear anymore.

The things I share about might change slightly as I do want to respect others and their feelings.  However I am going to march on, sharing my words, because that is what I was meant to do.

As Always,

Bethany

The Lonely Place

I haven’t written anything of substance for over a month.  My heart has been in an incredibly barren and angry place.  Everything I try to write comes off either whiney or selfish and that’s not where I am trying to go.

It’s no secret that Abigail and I are in a rough spot.  It’s seems as though 2014 has been the year of “everything falling apart.”  Each time that I felt I was back up on my feet, something else would happen and I’d get knocked back down.  I’ve spent the better part of the year feeling sorry for myself and trying to will my way out of this situation.

The deeper into it I get the bigger the ache gets.  I spent a good three weeks barely getting out of bed, not showering, and distracting myself with copious amounts of tv and gummy bears.

I slowly feel like I am pulling out of my funk.  I spend more of my days reading, journaling, and painting.  Not being absorbed in TV has helped dramatically.  Being intentional and focusing on Abigail has also been a defining factor as motherhood is one of the biggest things that keeps me fighting.

Yet even though there is all of this, all of the people who have so graciously helped us out financially and otherwise and those deep soul friends who have stuck around and reminded me that I am brave, a warrior and have coconut balls.  There is this deep sense of loss, of grief and of loneliness.

I am no stranger to these feelings, they have been bubbling under the surface for a really long time, only over the last year have they broken through the barrier I had been holding up and have made themselves known.

It seems so silly to say this that I hurt when no one comments on a facebook or instagram post.  I see the gatherings of women on facebook and I feel on the outside, once again.  I lived the majority of my life on the outside, looking in on people that seem to get one another, that seem to click and love each other.  It feels easier on my heart to stay on the outside rather than risk feeling lonely and getting hurt.

This insecurity in relationships I assume stems from a lifetime of feeling insecure and being on the outside of everything.  I spent more time alone as a child/teenager than I did with friends.

To really put myself out there and be vulnerable I would tell you that when I was in high school I would pretend like I was hanging out with my friends instead I was driving around, alone in the dark listening to The Eagles and Bette Midler.

I still feel those same old insecurities that I am not good enough to have friends, or that there is something inherently wrong with me, and that my whole mess is just too much for people.

So I slink on the outsides, I join groups but never say anything, I text a lot of people on those days I feel especially lonely and I snuggle with Buster, my sweet little service dog.

I don’t want to do this anymore, I want the loneliness to escape and slink away at the sight of my bravery (the ring I wear with the word engraved helps) I want to really embody the words that people speak over me.

Warrior

Brave

Fearless

Tenacious

Wild Woman

Those are the things I want to cling to, not that I don’t belong or that I am too much.  I am pretty sure that most people feel this way at some time or another.

I know that a lot of my own feelings get in the way of this happening, my fear of being worthless, of less than valuable or “that depressed girl who is so needy”

Today, I am not going to allow those lies to worm their way back into my heart.  Today I am going to believe that I am in fact who and what people say I am.

Bold, brave, fearless, wild.

As Always,

Bethany

Notice

Do you notice her there?

Downtrodden and hiding her eyes

They are lined, heavy with black

If only to cover her tear stained lids

She hides because she’s afraid

Afraid that if you see her

If you really notice her

That you’ll run away

Her tears would be too much

Her heartache would push you against the wall

She stares through her black hair, which is hanging over her eyes

She sees you sitting there, across the pond

On a bench, with a bright smile on your face

She notices you, she hears you laughing

As you talk on the phone

If you were to look up, you’d see her watching

Watching your happiness

If you were to look up, would you notice her sadness?

As Always,

Bethany

31Days – I dare you

I dare you.

Yes Bethany, you.

To look in the mirror right now and say

“I love you”

Bethany I dare you to see beyond what people say and do

I dare you to breath in grace every morning

I dare you to hope for bigger and brighter things

I know it’s dark now

But I believe the light will shine soon.

Don’t dare to stop dreaming

Don’t dare to stop believing that there are people who love you.

As Always,

Bethany

I have joined up with some friends for the Five Minute Friday link up.

Today’s topic is dare.  So I dare you to sit down, set your timer for five minutes and write, no editing, no spell check just your heart.

31Days – Soul Blurts

I have been blogging on faith now for almost three weeks.  It has been incredibly helpful to dive in and clean out those areas where the dust had settled.  There are still so many unanswered questions.

I am really struggling right now.  I have been sick for two years and even after brain surgery didn’t get that much better.  Now I have some weird lymph node thingy that the doctor thinks could be Epstein Barr.  While obviously it’s not life threatening it is just one more thing piled onto a plate that’s already breaking.

I cannot get out from underneath this weight.  The days come and go, sometimes I feel okay both physically and mentally.  Some days I stay in bed because the pain is excruciating.

I haven’t been able to work since February.  My health is the major cause however my truck broke down and I had to sell it.  I am applying for disability but that takes forever and right now I am sitting here wondering how I am going to get through November.   I have been doing this dance for two years, the can I pay my rent dance.  It’s not a fun one.

It is tiring. Not only because I am trying to take care of me but I am also taking care of another tiny human.  Abigail depends on me so much, being I am her only parent.  The days I stay in bed are the hardest on her.  She wants me to play with her and be active and I am really struggling right now.

Staying on top of chores, cleaning and homework feels overwhelming.  There is a deep part of me that wants to pack up and blow town.

That is beyond realistic.

I know I can gather up these feelings about God and His truths, hold them to my heart and somehow believe that it’ll work out.

As Always,

Bethany

31Days of Faith

It’s October 1^st.  That means the start of fall.  This is the season I could stay in forever.  The days are crisps, the nighttime smells like the mountains.  I get to combine my two favorite wardrobe choices; scarves and cardigans AND it rings in the pumpkin pie errrrrr I mean holiday season.

It’s also the first day of the 31days blog challenge, which encourages bloggers to write and post everyday for the month of October.  I have never done it before and considering that I am inconsistent at best in posting I am going to give it my best attempt.  It will be good for me to write with intention, which isn’t something I always do.

I am picking a topic that I struggle with and giving myself permission to write shorter posts.  I tend to write 1000+ word posts.  This is all a new area for me so I am wading in with pessimist toes.  I really want to follow through because my topic is one that I could use some serious writing about.

What’s my topic?

Faith

I haven’t written about my faith or faith in general in a long time.  I have been dancing around the issue mostly because I am partially afraid of the response; from both myself and those around me.  Honestly this is probably the hardest topic for me to write about because I feel like I am in such murky Jesus waters (I don’t know what that means, it just sounded good.)

It’s highly doubtful that I will be raw and vulnerable with each post.  I might even do some research and post about other faith related matters as well.  Honestly, not knowing exactly where this is going to go is kind of exciting.

Will you join me in these murky Jesus waters as I wade through my faith over the last eight years?  It would be a pleasure if you all would join me in conversation as I talk about matters of faith.

As Always,

Bethany

Don’t Worry it Wasn’t Zombies

When I wrote the two posts about how I was drugged and raped (mine and the one for Micah’s blog) I did it because I honestly needed my community to know so they could stand beside and support me.  I didn’t realize that it would be like opening a Pandora’s box of vulnerability and added emotion within my soul that would shatter me.  I later described as taking the bandages off of an infected gunshot wound and having all of the pus come pouring out.

I have an extremely detailed trauma history which includes sexual abuse and repeated rapes.  So being raped again brought back each and every memory in the form of anxiety attacks and flashbacks.  I was entirely numb the first week after it happened, a defense for which I am now thankful for.  The terror came when the #yesallwomen trend hit twitter that Saturday night and the reality of what happened sunk in to a place in me that I was unable to handle.

By Sunday, which was eight days later I knew in my gut that I needed to report what had happened.  I couldn’t bear the thought of him doing this to another woman and not getting caught.  I had amazing support and without that I do not that I would have been able to make it through the reporting processes.  It is incredibly painful to share the story of what happened multiple times.  I left with several different resources and a prescription for Ativan for anxiety.

The new week started and I was trying my best to hang onto reality but I couldn’t.  Not that I was losing perception of whom and where I was rather the anxiety and flashbacks were so bad that I was dissociating nearly every day.  I was trying my best to take care of not only myself but Abigail too.  The issue lied in me telling her that it’s okay that she can have ice cream for breakfast.  I wasn’t eating or getting off the couch except to go to the bathroom.

That Tuesday night the 27^th I didn’t sleep at all, I tried called the RAAIN hotline at 2am and it was busy (which made me sad) I was in the midst of a constant anxiety attack and the flashbacks were hitting me one after another.  That morning after Abigail got on the bus I tried to rationalize that I was okay to stay home.  I called my therapist because I needed someone to tell me what to do.  My decision making skills were nil by that point and fear and flashbacks had taken over my body.

I finally decided that I needed to check into the psychiatric hospital.  Not because I was suicidal.  I have been down that road way too many times.  It hurts too many people.  I had to go because I absolutely could not take care of myself or Abigail and that was scaring me.  I have no one in my life that can be a back up parent and if I am not at 100% she suffers.  So I went in, did an intake and by 530 last Wednesday night I was a patient at Highlands Behavioral Health.

I felt major shame in being admitted back into a mental health facility.  It had been since early 2005 since I had needed that level of care.  I also was carrying shame about the rape.  There was shame and anger that right now he is out living life while I was behind locked doors.  I was away from my daughter and only able to make phone calls at certain times.  I felt guilty that she didn’t know that my friend was picking her up from school early and she was expecting me.  My friend has two little girls but I know that once she settled in it did get better.

With all that I knew I was in the right place.  The psychiatrist was able to start adjusting some of my medications, taking me off of the ones I really did not need to be on that are ineffective and putting me on some that help with panic, anxiety and flashbacks.

The hospital isn’t too bad.  I mean despite the fact that you cannot have strings on your pants, your own hair and body products and the worst……. No pens.  Pencils only and they were the stubby little golf pencils.  I know why they make those rules.  It is for safety and usually because someone has tried something with say a pen so now we a relegated to golf pencils.

There are always people that become fast friends because everyone is in such a raw vulnerable spot.  I believe that can be a good thing.  It gives each client someone other than their psychiatrist or therapist to talk to and sometimes the clients, having been through similar things can offer a different perspective and a different kind of hope.

The staff was amazing, by far the kindest of any hospital I have been in they knew what had happened and showed a level of empathy that I needed.  The stigma I felt attached to me being in the hospital was that I had slipped back to old Bethany.  However I know that if I hadn’t admitted myself I would have made choices that would have affected both Abigail and I and I am not willing to make those choices.

I said in a facebook status right after it happened that I have never dealt with a rape or my sexual abuse sober or without resorting to some sort of self destructive behavior.  This time I am feeling every.single.feeling. that pushes it’s way in and flows over my body like a tidal wave.  When I talk about it I am still very detached from how much it hurts.  Yet five minutes later I’ll be overcome by a wave of emotion and break down on the floor sobbing.

I know that all of these emotions are okay, and expected to be felt.  Checking into to hospital was the best thing I could have done.  I was able to get my medication figured out which was really nice because my doctor at Kaiser doesn’t seem to have the time to that.

I honestly do not know what is next.  There isn’t enough direct evidence to charge him, it’s all circumstantial.  The detective in charge of the case said it’ll stay a deactivated case meaning it can be reopened at any time if anything suspicious pops up.  That also gives both Abigail and I access to the crime victim compensation fund.

That’s where things stand now.  I am working each day on just doing the next right thing.  Sometimes that’s hour by hour, sometimes I can go longer.  I have great outpatient support and I am not going to let this take me down.

That bastard doesn’t get to have the final say.

 

As Always,

Bethany

Birth

Birth is bloody

Aching

Growing with each contraction

Setting forth to bear life

I strain against the pain

Of this unseen birth

 

What would leaning in be like?

 

This is a set before time birth

A “Just for this time and place” resurrection

Untold hope unleashing

From the dark stillness of the womb

 

It was quiet and safe there

 

It’s messy here in the

-in between-

As cords and entanglements rip and need to be cut

The groaning grows louder

My sides split

 

As His was pierced

 

Weeping now

For the years this birth is erasing

Washing away the pain

Evacuating years of grief

To give way to new life

 

Birth is bloody

Painful

Yet gives way to

Life

Being

Hopeful

Resurrected

 

As Always,

Bethany