Damn fish hook!

My emotions...

~ A contraction pattern in labor
~ A sea affected by high winds
~ A overview of hills and valleys

I've said it before and I'll say it again. It's exhausting. It's overwhelming, it's unpredictable, and it's difficult. My emotions are all over the place. 
It makes sense to me though. I'm continuing one on one therapy weekly and group therapy every Tuesday night. Last week I walked in for my session and I told my therapist that I wanted to tell her the details of my worst abusive experience. I had prayed about it, decided to focus on that for the hour and had geared up most of the day for it. When the time came, I could not speak of it. I sat on the couch frozen.  I became locked up emotionally, unable to form the words from my mouth and eventually became very disgusted with myself. This process is vicious. In that moment, and many other moments, I became the child victim on the couch with the inability to process what was going on, much less find the words. It's truly now a battle between the 2019 Stacie and the little kid Stacie. This has been explained to me as a normal, healthy progression of healing and that I need to nourish and care for the kid in me so that the two can unite. Strange huh! Some days I can comprehend this but most days it's just so odd to understand that I just want to take a nap. I have come to the conclusion that when it's therapy time, I feel like and become a vulnerable child who tries very hard to express herself with difficulty. I'm embarrassed, afraid, confused,  fidgety, and fearful. When you see me out and about, I'm the 2019 Stacie who is doing her best to be a Christian, wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt, friend and nurse that I strive to be. I'm fluctuating so much right now between trying to tap in to (and understand) little Stacie and the 2019 Stacie, that my emotions feel like what was typed in the beginning of this post. I feel like I am living with a VERY LARGE metal fish hook through my gut at times. It tears, rips, and pulls at my insides so much that I just feel sick. 

I go from feeling that "It is well with my soul" to "It is NOT well with my soul". "I am making progress" to "Am I making progress?"

I've never named or discussed the relationships of my perpetrators on this blog and I really don't intend to. I do realize that I'm still protecting. When I am in group therapy, I have begun to speak of who and the relationship of them to me. It's a bit liberating and also nerve wracking at the same time. Every week my goal is to trust the process a little more and to try a little harder to share more each week. 

I took a huge step a few weeks ago and visited a perpetrator face to face. I spoke my mind to him and said things to him that I had wanted to say for a very long time. This confrontation was a goal I had made for myself. In the past, I had done this before to other perpetrators and NEVER once received validation, remorse, or received any kind of apology. This time was different and I am extremely thankful. He was receptive, I was validated, I saw remorse, and he apologized over and over again. 

Thank you for being a supporter of me and this blog. I truly feel like this is a positive type of therapy for me - and hopefully others. Pray for healing, transparency, and vulnerability for all victims of abuse because it's NOT easy. 

God Bless!