Stand up straight.

Feelings, emotions, tears, anger and things were spread across the floor. Words, screams and empty looks galore. I sat there begging myself to stop feeling but in the begging I only began to feel more and more…

I have wrestled with writing this blog post for years because I believed writing about the story must mean you aren’t over the story but writing this now I realise I am actually okay. So hello let me welcome you into my deepest thoughts and feelings and I must please just ask you to leave no coffee stains on my table top.

I grew up without a dad. He did not really leave he was just simply not there and this is something I came to terms with before I was even born because having a mom and not a dad made sense in my brain because that is all I ever knew until someone told me that because I am who I am my dad left. That sentence embedded itself into my DNA and left my world absolutely shattered. The words that came after that left me even more numb and begging the person to stop telling me these things… I was called ugly,stupid, worthless and abandoned. I had statistics of how growing up in a single parents household would just set me up for failure. My world was rocked and my heart was aching.

The years following on from that statement just led to me hating who I was more and more. I could find things to hate about me everyday. Oh you didn’t get that right? You are so stupid. The bullies left the playground but their words became echoes and screams in my head and I no longer needed others to throw words at me because I was more than capable at being my biggest enemy. I no longer needed people to tell me how awful I was because I was more than capable at telling myself how much of a failure I was. Self-harm does not always have a razor pressed against your skin with blood pouring out… Self-harm can also be when your cutting happens internally and because no one can ask you did your cat scratch your arm?

I had to learn how to forgive those who wronged me and then I had to learn how to forgive myself.  Sure the forgiveness wasn’t easy but I managed to forgive my dad and the bullies but forgiving myself was the next huge mission… Girl you tried to kill yourself? How much can you really hate yourself to get to that point? I locked myself into a castle that was protected by so many dragons that I alone was stuck in the highest room seeing all the happiness around me but all I could feel was coldness. If  I stay in this room I won’t feel anymore pain. Blocking yourself off from sadness blocks you away from happiness too. The mind is a powerful thing and fighting with the wilderness of the mind is probably one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do.

How could the one person who was meant to love you leave you ? That is something I struggled with and came to terms with that everyone left but I was still stuck on the thought of how could those who love  you leave?  Wilderness. I became a wilderness. An uncultivated, uninhabited and inhospitable region. I pushed people away and I become a pro at running away from things that seemed like they might hurt me. I preferred pushing away happiness and feeling sadness because I was in control of that feeling. It took me a while to realise that I could choose joy and that I am actually in control of how I feel.

Without God I would not be writing this blog post and I would be dead. God wanted me as His daughter alone and I realise now that I had to go through that to appreciate love more and to understand that no one is perfect but my body still saw love as a threat. I did not let anyone close to me and did not see the point of having great friendships because everyone leaves in the end BUT I forgave myself. I saw the beauty of loving people so unashamedly… I understood that feeling happiness so deeply was worth whatever pain may come. The prayers you pray in the wilderness come to fruition in the promise land. God did not give me a sense of happiness, peace and comfort in the wilderness I created for myself until I stepped out of the wilderness and into His promises. I overcame my self-hate and hate towards my dad in 2013 and life improved so much sense then.

 

Until heart break and overthinking knocked on my door when I had enough courage to love someone without running away. I saw myself slipping into my old ways and walking back into the wilderness where I begged God to take me because the heartache became too much and I sat back and was astounded at how the challenge that previously took me into my wilderness came in a different form this time and I was so easily led back into the wilderness…

 

 

I guess you can say that your overcoming will be tested again and again.

 

Any recovering addict will tell you that you aren’t just clean from your addiction but it is a daily decision to overcome again and again and to remain clean. I am addicted to overthinking and addicted to thinking that I am better off on my own. But this is a trap and whether your addiction is relationships, love, cutting, hatred, bitterness, drugs, alcohol or whatever it is a daily overcoming. It is not a clean break. Its a daily walk and a daily decision… Your prayers in the desert need to continue in the promise land. The stance of your prayers may change but the enemy knows where to attack and aim and if you leave that area unguarded.

I am not saying you need to be negative and think that you will slip into your old ways again. No. All I am saying is that if you are set free from the wilderness but you keep the same attitude in the promise land you will never be set free from the wilderness stance and the wilderness hunger for more. The thirst you had in the wilderness will remain and no matter how many wells are around you wont drink from it because you still living in the sense of unanswered prayers and the sense that you haven’t gotten far at all. The prayer from the wilderness may change when in the promise land but the prayer changes from asking to thanking but the requests stay the same and your thoughts become bigger.

 

I have felt the addiction to run very recently but I needed to remind myself that I am not the ten year old little girl who was abandoned, bullied and wanted to die but I am the nineteen year old woman who is chosen, resorted and loved.

 

The posture needs to change or else the deliverance is null and void.