Friend or foe

There are people who give all they have to help others and people who do nothing but take from others. I have always tried to be a giver. Many people took from me what I gave and others who took when I was not giving. They just took.Ripped off pieces of me. I call them energy suckers. I have fallen victim to these people so many times. I know now why! All of the energy sucker that I have known are good at making you feel a part of there lives. A part of there family. They endear you to them with a sense of welcome, the whole you are a part of my family and I care about you thing! The next thing ya know you are mowing there grass and making them dinner. They ask and I give.I am a patsy for it every time! When they are done with you it hurts big time! I have a selective blindness issue. I will only see the potential of people not who they truly are! At least not until I am left wondering what hell went wrong and why is this person treating me badly. I have in my life been a part of many family's. I was always heartbroken when I realized that this friendship was so one sided and the other person really was just using me. I fall victim to it and try to not let me feeling run away with me. My head fights to stay in control. At this point my inner voice does me no good. It is still that small child's voice that wins." I want a family that will love me, please!" I could kick the shit out of that kid every time I cry over one more loss! I tell her to see the person for what they really are not who they could be or who you want them to be! Stop being so pathetic and grow the fuck up, you do not need what you never had, and if you never had it you can not miss it you do not truly understand what you are missing,....Dumb ass!
The lesson is see people for who they are not who you need them or want them to be!!! Hard to do, but it saves lots of pain trust me and learn from my growth on this one!!!

letter to my abuser

I could not sleep. I found myself turning it over and over again in my mind. I found myself feeling unsettled and fearful.I thought about you. I tried to imagine you as a child, helpless and small.I tried to picture you with your abuser. I wanted so much to connect with that image. I thought it would somehow give me some sense.Some kind of understanding to why you hurt me. Why evil seemed normal to you. You were in my shoes once, was it normal then? When you were small did it feel normal? Or were you like me? Did you freeze at ever touch, feel sick at the thought of it. Let your soul leave your body to escape the pain and fear? If you were like me, then how could you go on to hurt someone else in that way? Not just some one else, no not a stranger, your child! I was your child! I was a flesh and blood part of you. Did you hate your self that much that you would damage a part of your self to the point that they would carry that pain there whole life, long after you were gone!? You made the choice to hurt me! Did you need to regain your power. The power taken from you by your father? Did doing the same to me make it feel better for you? Did it make you feel like a man? In your last days I gave you forgiveness, sympathy and love. I gave you, the devil himself, forgiveness! Sympathy! Love! Would you have given that to your abuser if you had the chance? I do not think so! when you abuser died you just sent flowers. You did not know him, you could not forgive him.The flowers cost $27.50. Not sure why the price sticks in my head. Because you never got to tell him that he hurt you or ask him why, maybe you can understand why I had to ask you and push you to get my answers. I hated you for so long.I hate my memories of you still. You broke my bones and used my body as if I had no feelings at all. I was your toy, a possession with out feelings.That is how you treated me. I learned not to feel physical pain, I shut off from my body and no pain can reach me. Break my arm and I did not cry. I would just sit quietly on the floor. I would tell the lies I was told to tell in the car on the way to the ER Like your "good big girl." I remember sitting at the foot of your bed while you slept holding your loaded gun. I wanted to kill you, to shoot you and watch you die. I wanted to rid myself of your evil. I would always walk back upstairs and put the gun away and think that I was a coward. I know it would have been easy to kill you it was hard to in the end forgive you and myself for what happened.I have written you so many times. I have thought of you everyday sense your death. I wonder if God exist what you had to face in death. I hope you got a life review and had to experience things from my perspective. I wonder if God forgave you? Are you in heaven or hell. I think sometimes that maybe you are with me and feeling my pain. I am not sure what became of you. Are you at rest? The secrets and lies you let behind life on in this world, the pain and horror are still fresh.You are not forgotten here. I just want you to know dad that I am telling and I will not stop. I will survive you and your abuse. I hope we meet on the other side.I hope I can say what I need to then. I hope to maybe view your soul and gain understanding and peace. I have tried in this life to have that and will keep working on it. It is crazy, I fucking hate you and I fucking wanted you just to be a good parent. To love me and treat me well, encourage me and hug me! You did your best in public to pretend but we both knew the truth!I was your child you fucking bastard! I will survive the damage to my soul I will move forward I will not ever be like you. Thank God evil is not in my make up! I have prayed for you. I pray for me. I move on one moment at a time. I will heal my soul and my heart. I am not your victim anymore.

The quiet moments

In quiet moments I remember just how it felt to be powerless and small. I can feel lost and alone. I find it hard not to sink in to a hole a self doubt. I have to remind my self that I am stronger then my memories and stronger then the acts perpetrated on me by my abuser. I have to move past the moment and pull myself back to the hear and now. I sometimes remember his smell or his breathing. It is like a movie in my head and my body goes on ride. My senses are overloaded and my instinct is to shut down. That is what is hard for me. I Know I am safe and loved and yet fear can push up it's ugly head at any time. My inner self screams. "This is not real snap out of it!" It is like some distant whisper at first and then a scream that pulls at me until my frozen body reanimates and I can once again feel my surroundings. The whole thing may only last a few moments but it feels like a life time.I have been fighting those moments all my life. I feel every time they rob me of being present in moment. They make me feel victimized all over again. I know it happens for some reason. Maybe it is so I will never forget that I survived. Maybe I am supposed to use it to help others. I am not sure. I just think if I did not need it in some way those moments would be over. I know from every thing we must learn lessons. I stumble to get this lesson behind me, but, I will someday.I look at others and wonder what there quiet moments are like.Are they peeling there emotional onion and crying from the smell of it only to find it's healing properties? I wonder what normal people do in those quiet moments?I wonder if there are "normal" people! I read that 37 million Americans were sexually abused in 2009. The number staggered me! Is the world in such a bad state that we allow this? Are we as a people allowing this? Do we look away from harsh things to not be involved. Are our children disposable, usable like everything else. Is control in such high demand that it has to be taken over the helpless and weak? I have studied sexual predators and tried to figure them out. I have known children who where abused and then became abusers. The chain of sickness one link at a time. The damage on the mind of a child last a life time. If I got in a car accident and lost my legs I would learn to use a wheelchair, I would be hard, I would be fine. If I lost an arm...I would be fine, prosthesis is available. But damage my soul, my mind... well, that is a life long uphill battle.I know a battle it every day. I never forget not one thing, not one moment! I survive on a day to day basis fighting those quiet moments. My abuser, gone, dead, I fear him still. I am not sure why. It is always in my mind that he will somehow find out I have finally told on him. In the end of his life I knew he had been abused too, he told me so. I knew that he was a link in that chain. The chain ended when he died no further links will be formed. Just that quiet moment to move past. They are less now that I am older and someday they may not come at all. But for now... I hate the quiet, I survive the quiet. I will not be a victim of the quiet. I will heal my soul and find my peace, but I will not do it quietly!!!! I will share it and trust in friends, I will put it in my art and my songs I will yell and swear at it. I will live, grow and change to find out who I am inside and share that with anyone who care to hear!!!! It took so long for me to tell that now I will not stop telling. I can not. I am a survivor here!

Ready to share again

I think that we all know the challenges life has. Some of us destined to face bigger ones then others. Still you should not judge some one else based on how easy or hard there life has been. No one has a free from feeling ride in life. Things may appear to be happy for the other side of the road but get close and listen at the door and then know the other persons reality. No one can truly understand what some else thinks or feels. We all make assumptions about others. Why as people do we do this? To make us feel better? Is it weakness on our part to want others to have a harder time in life? Or if we think that they have a better life we judge them as well! You can never walk a mile in someones emotional shoes! Too much goes into that and it could never be possible. We could how ever give others the chance to show who they are and what they are made of. The substance of a person is what matters! But know that no one is who we think they are. Every person has a private self. I know vary few people I share that self with and feel safe doing so.I speak with my inner voice to few people, the people I trust and love. I am open and kind to other friends just not as intimate with my feelings and thoughts. It is a self regulation I think we all do. It protects us and makes those close connections special. I admit I have not shared half of the things that have happened in my life with you because I need to protect my feelings. I share what I think I can. I did have someone ask why I did not get more detailed about my abuse as a child. Well, because this is not a work of fiction or a movie...it is my real life! My goal was to reach people and share how I have grown and changed, to show it is possible for anyone. I keep information and details to myself because they are painful. I could write about them for shock value or to entertain you and keep ya reading. But that is not my goal. I lived in hell and never wish that anyone know how that feels. Most people who have been in my childhood shoes commit suicide or become abusers themselves.It is my walk into survival that I want to share, not my victimization!I had to step away from my original format to deal with my feeling that crashed in on my physique like a bolder. I am ready to get back on track and start diving in to my soul again. I will give you what I can, on my terms. Read it if you want to, learn from it if you can, and know it is all about healing. Me and you! Know that this is soooo fucking hard to do and respect that!

my dogs are family too

When I was a small girl my family had lots of dogs. I found comfort in them, safety and love. When I grew up I found that the same was still true. My dogs have given me unconditional love and made me smile despite how I may have been feeling at the time. Love from a dog is like no other love. Strange but true! My dogs do not judge me or criticize me,the do not care how I look or if I am funny or clever. they only want to give and receive the basics, love, food and my time.They have laid on my bed when i was sick and licked my hand.Let me hold them when I have cried in sadness and slept at my feet to keep me safe. I wished as a child that I would turn into a dog and I would never again know the cruelty of being human. Humans seemed so hurtful and dishonest in there emotions.I gave my dog all of my tears and secrets. As an adult I have had several dogs.I trained therapy dogs and used them to help children of sexual abuse to enable them to testify against there abusers. My dog Charlie sat in a police station for 5 hours in the middle of the night while a strange child of the age of 6 gripped him and cried on him while the child told of his abuse. Charlie licked the child face and wagged his tail the whole time. Not once did he want to get down or ask for a walk. When the child was done and was ready to go to a safe house. Charlie and I said good night. My dog sat as I tried to walk him to my car. He sat and I could not move him. He sat until the child and his mother left the police station parking lot, then he got up and walked me to our car. He sat with his paw on my leg the whole way home.As if to say, I hope you are ok too,I am here for you. Charlie is 10 now and he is looking old. I give my friend a good life and lots of love. He has done the same for me. I think of the work he once did and know that he made a difference. I think all dogs do. I have done some animal rescues for the ASPCA in the past years. I worked in mental health and would come across some pretty serious situations regarding pets.Hoarders with too many dos and cats to count in one visit. I would get them to agree to sign over the pets to me and I would clean them out and take the animals to the pound for treatment and re homing. One dog will always stand in my mind.The owner had a serious mental illness. She had 7 dogs and they never left the house. They came in as puppies and never left the house until I came. The floor was compacted fecal matter. About 2 feet thick! I ran out after a short time and got sick in the driveway. I put tiger balm under my nose and went back in. I got her to sign over the dogs and I let her say goodbye as I took them one at a time to my suv and put them in. I thought I had them all until she said. "you will have to come back for Tiger. He can not be with the others and I am not sure how to get him out for you!" I asked what she meant by that and where was Tiger. She pointed to a door with a small hole cut in it.I walked over and looked in. A large pit bull was on the floor looking up at me covered in sores and poop. His owner explained that the dog was 3 years old and he was left with her by her son and she was afraid of him so she put him in that bathroom and fed him through the door. From the time he was a puppy.I talked to him through the door. He lunged at the door and bit the door frame. His eyes told me he was sick and in pain. I left and took the other dogs to the shelter. They where in bad shape. I got a catch pole and a shot pole. I took a tranquilizer with me the shelter major showed me how to use. I could not bring them to the home because I had promised my client she would not have any kind of ordeal and her mental health treatment was important to me.She had agreed to go to a assisted living home and if I broke my deal that would be out and she needed it so badly!
I returned to the home. I comforted her on the lose of her dog friends and told her they would go to good homes. I explained what I had to do to help Tiger. I pushed the shot pole in the hole and got him and the 10th try.My arm hurt for days after! When he was out I opened the door rolled him on a tarp, drug him to my car put him in the back with a muzzle on and left for the shelter.I had tied a know in the leash and closed the leash in the door. Me safe! I got to the shelter as he woke up. The shelter manager and I looked at him through the window, he was thin, and his paws where covered in open sores and blood.His Oder unbearable.We tried for ever to get him to show some sign of approachability. He hated people!!! He feared people. He had not know human touch in years. We gave him a sedative.We needed to get close enough to him to put him down. WE lifted him out of the car. I needed to put this dog on the grass. I needed to! The shelter manager looked at me in understanding.We took in to a spot near the woods and laid him on the grass. I stroked his head. He was just a dog. He trusted the people to love him and care for him instead they locked him in a small room and dumped food in a hole for him, not even enough to fill his belly.He was sick and in pain. He had not known kindness! I held his head and spoke softly to him as he was given his final shot.He licked my hand before he died. We both cried and stood up walking away from his body now cover by the tarp. She said that she thought he needed the last lick in to see if I might have been tasty. I said no he just wanted to say thank you. I drove home in a fog and with a new dog on my lap. Fostering it was what I needed.I cried the whole way. I found the little dog a home in no time. All the others where put down due to illness and age. some blind and crippled. Others with advanced heart worm.But Tiger....I know how he felt. I know that anger and fear when people are supposed to love you do not.I see pits now and then who look like him and I have to take a deep breath. I wanted to save him and show him kindness. He was too far gone for that. I know that I could have been Tiger. I was that angry and fearful once.

People say that they do not understand my love for my dog and why I take in rescues when I have other things going on in my life.And for now I have stopped taking them in. But I have done it and may do it again in the future because I know just how that dog feels and I can help them. I never want admit it but each time I help me too. That child inside me who connects with that fear and pain heals each time I help a living thing in pain to trust and love again.

I may not do rescue for many years but something tells me that it is never over.
So if you need a friend and you are not sure if you should or could adopt a friend. Know you will get back more then you will ever need to give! Let that child inside you lead you to a fuzzy loving wet nosed friend! You will never be alone again!

Word of the day folks, love make a difference and grow from it!

trust

Well now, I hear my inner voice screaming at me again. Why, Kathy, why?! Why do you trust your fellow man to do the right things when you know they will never live up to that trust. I say, do not be that way, that is so awful. Some live up to that trust and some do not and that is a fact. Yet when someone that can't or don't live up to my trust comes along it hurt so much I say I will not put myself out there again to get hurt. Well.... I do it again and again thinking that I will give people the benefit of the doubt, I will trust my fellow man. I must! I am not the sort to be distrustful, I want so much to think that others are like me and take trust seriously. Wow, I know it sound crazy. I get hit hard a lot on this one. I just do not want to walk through life not trusting. Now I don't trust for the sake of it. i trust people that I know and have become friends with. Not a dark stranger in the ally! I am not stupid here! But friends, people that I have come to know. I can say that I give my trust to friends. Yet these people that I call friends have taken me for stupid. Not all my friends but some of them. They have taken my trust and used it to better themselves and disregarded me and my feelings. The hurt of that is like a break up with a lover. That intimate friendship connection broken and defiled. It hurts... So I tell myself, learn from this and do not give so much of yourself. I can not get that lesson for some reason. I invest deeply in friendships. I can not allow myself not to experience a friendship in it's fullest! Even knowing it may hurt in the end. But I learn from each one and take that for what it is worth. I hope in that I find more of myself and know that the friendship gave me something I needed at the time.Then I lick my wounds and move on!What else can you do, never trust never have the joy of a friend, never experience the world one persons view at a time. Friends have a lot to give and even when the friendship is over you still have some lesson that it gave to you. Now, my mother was agoraphobic and never left the house and did not have friends. She had a sad life. I know I watched it play out for her. I never understood it. She trusted no one. She lived her life behind closed doors with only my father as her confidant. After her death he told he how hard that was for him, he was a social person and wished she could do things with him. He felt responsible for her happiness all the time and hated her for it a good part of the time. I never understood how they worked as a couple. I vowed that I would not ever be like my mother or my father! No matter how hard some friendships are they are worth it! We get so much from the interaction in the end! I hope that trust is something that is seen as a gift from one person to another!!! Think about how you give and how you receive trust it matters for you and others!!!!Think about it! Word of the day!TRUST!

The real deal, Change

So, I have given much thought to what creates a change in people and I could tell you that is is some dramatic event or survival of hardship. I have come to know that although I have been through that kind of thing it is more often realization on self.What you think about your environment and relationships. What you know is good for you and what you are willing to do about what takes away from you. Your time, love and energy. Are you willing to fight for you and your happiness? I took a long time to find my inner self and to listen to myself. I still ignore my true feelings to please others and work on changing that every day.Happiness just does not happen, you have to know what makes you happy and work for it! I think we all have an idea what we want from ourselves and others. But damn it, it is so hard to do what we need to so that we can have what we want from an honest point of view. we lie to our bosses to get a day off because we need time to do something for our family or lie to a friend because they are invading our personal space. we lie to ourselves and say that if we do all the right things we well get that perfect body, while we cheat on our diet and say I will do better tomorrow but that day never comes. I am guilty too man! But I work on it every day and know I am creating change in my life. I recently spoke to an old friend who said that they lived in a strange situation. They are married but have not had sex in 4 years but, hoped it would get better and loved their spouse. I asked if the spouse loved them back. My friend said, I am not sure!! Holy shit wake up and smell the coffee!!! I wanted to smack them in the head and yell wake up, it is over, move on, stop wasting your life. This is not happy!! In a place called happy people in a marriage love each other and talk and share feelings. They have sex!!! Unless agreed that they both don't want to.
Now I have the hole I stay for the kids thing. But hello now you are showing your kids that a dysfunctional relationship is ok. They will some day feel guilty and need counseling and wonder about every relationship they have as an adult. Show them how to be true to themselves and that true love counts. They will still get love from both parents and be just fine. So... instead of saying that out loud I said...oh I am so sorry to hear that. Strange conversation! I was courteous on the outside and freak-in out on the inside. But why did I not say what I wanted to? I think I was afraid or felt awkward, like it was not my place. But now I think damn it why didn't I say it. I should have it was honest and true to myself. I did not want to hurt my friend but enlightenment is never easy. I wish that others had done the same for me in many situations in my life!It may have saved me a lot of work and suffering. So now I can say that I welcome others honesty even if it hurt in the moment.Truth is worth it's weight in gold! Now having truth with your self... much harder. we lie to ourselves for lots of reasons. I know I still do and fight to call myself on it. I am never going to "work out" like a say I will. I hate exercise and sweating! I hate it! So why do I eat that cake and say I will have to just "work it off" that day my friends will never come!Sooo the cake sits on my ass as a sad bump of cellulite! I am sad to say it will never be alone next to it's family of cake bumps. But I work on knowing that I am lying and try to change it. Change is hard! It hurts and is uncomfortable to know and except. But the reward is you being honest to yourself and learning so much from it. You will know yourself truly and then know what you want from yourself and in turn others! Worth it? YES IT IS! As a way of life I can say it gave me more then anything else. My truth is what I stand on and know as the one thing in my life that never fails me. I know that in fear we all so what we must to survive, but, if we do it with truth it changes our outcomes. I know so many people who lie cheat and steel to get to the top and money seems to make them happy...but are they really? Do they have true friends and will the grow in spirit? Will they know simple joys and love or wonder if there bad deeds will come back on them and not truly trust friends family or others because they think others are like them and just look out for themselves and what they want to get. It is a ugly slippery sloop! Truth and change in self can bring you to a higher ground of understanding, who your real friends are and who is truthful with you. What is real love and what is not. No trick no lie no gimmick just truth. Now I am not saying tell your friend she is ugly or fat or her dress is the most loud thing in the room. Use it where it counts.Maybe tell her that you worry she is not happy because she is gaining weight and you love her and know how hard she has to work to keep it off. Use truth to connect not disconnect. Well unless the disconnect is what you want, then be honest about why! A few years ago I did the honest disconnect and ended a friendship that was not good for me. A 20 year friendship. It was hard to do. But others would ask me, how can you still be her friend she is not good for you and lies all the time. I guess I saw the person that she could be instead of who she was. I wanted to be friends with that potential in her, have faith that she could be a better person despite how she hurt me. She would never be the person that I needed as a friend. The disconnect was hard but I know now worth it. She still has not changed...Sometimes truth leads us down roads we never expected and when the changes come, man they come !!! Take it from me. In 2006 I was married had 2 kids and was a workaholic! I had little friends and traveled and gave my life to my job. Thought I would be in that life until I retired and married to the same man. WOW, now I am getting a divorce and my job let me go while I was in the hospital with cancer. My job could not love me, it just took all I could give it and spit me out for someone else who could do it. They did not do it as well and that is the truth, but they could do it. So I was given a choice... I could get well and jump back in to the life that gave me cancer or change it all and be happy.... CHANGE!!!! Found truth in myself and change came in. I feel like a preacher on Sunday folks!! But it is true all of it!!! Live,Grow and Change.... Be happy you have one life one chance at being the person you want to be. When you are true to yourself you will know who that person is, I promise you!