Introduction

I am well aware that there will be those who will read this to find not what they can learn from this but what they can condemn. That is a sad, pitiful world to inhabit, but it is their choice to do so.

My purposes in sharing these writings and thoughts lie in the hopes that for those who have first-hand experience with the realities found within, they will find the comfort and strength that comes in knowing they are not alone in dealing with the difficulties these realities result in. Also, for those who are secondary witnesses or perhaps completely oblivious to the nightmares of those around them, that by seeing the emotions felt during, and by reading the further perspective, explanations, and lessons beyond and throughout, they will take a position that will support and aid rather than neglect, inhibit, or harm those already so dearly taxed.

The following are selections from what I have long called my 'poem journal'. They show the focused intensity of thoughts and feelings that had no other recourse for expression during the early years of my fight to break free -  physically, emotionally, and psychologically - from the effects of an abusive home. The poems show the ups and downs and what I consider my sheer stubborn-ness to not be broken by a nightmare few can comprehend. The second, or response, part for each poem is by way of encouragement, explanation for those who are clueless to these realities, and teaching of truths I've learned throughout all of this.

Towards the poem end of this journal writing, I had my first contact with, or perhaps simply my first awareness of, a person who had been through similar abuse and manipulation. She was teaching a lesson at church and some of the things she spoke of were things I had long felt and thought but had never heard anyone else express before. Even now, years later, it is hard to express how that made, and still makes, me feel - to realize that I wasn't isolated in a world no one could understand. It was almost as if, by seeing that someone else had been and was dealing with the same reality of sorts, there was a doorway out of the solitary confinement and isolation abuse creates. To that end, I hope that this can help others who may not have yet found that same escape route to freedom. I can't say everything's better now, but considering where I was from the thought patterns of the abused, I am so much further that it's almost like discovering a new world. It's a little scary, but also a lot exciting.

The scriptures and poems and thoughts are not separated by intended audience, be it for those in the nightmare, those leaving, or those who do not have experience with such things. I have long been taught in classes that we get the most learning when we give the most effort. There are many thoughts and concepts considered that will have value to a variety of situations and people and it is my hope that they will be pondered with an open heart with an eye to what can be learned.

There is a predominance of attention paid to physical and sexual abuse, as well attention should be paid, but there is a sad element of disbelief towards emotional, psychological, even spiritual abuse. During the later years, as I began to recognize that there was a problem at home, I would sometimes try to tell people of various upsetting events. Most often, those people would look at me like I was whining about nothing legitimate. They couldn't understand that constant 'little' events with no one to step in and counter the damage being done leads to total undermining of self-hood. And despite the fact that some will read this and think it fabrication or exaggeration, I know for a fact that it can cause death completely apart from suicide. It nearly killed me.

It was somewhere around the beginning of 2007 on my way to work early one morning. I was stopped, the first in line, at a stoplight of a busy highway intersection. Behind me a car honked. When at a stoplight and someone behind you honks, what does it mean? It means you need to pay attention, the light is green, and you need to go so you're not holding others back. I looked at the light and it was red. But there had been a honk and I was so constantly over-written and over-ruled at home that any trust in myself and my perceptions was unsustainable in the face of contrary opinion. The two minutes between the horn honk and the light finally, actually turning green held the absolute hardest battle of my life to keep my foot on the break and not enter the intersection where I would have surely been killed. I was shaking for days after because of how hard it had been to hold to what my eyes told me when my brain kept telling me that if someone had honked I must be seeing things wrong, it must really be green and not red like I thought I saw.

So if you are inclined to minimize non-physical abuse, you may want to step back and try broadening your perceptions. It may be that there is one in your life who is in desperate need of support and a countering voice to the destruction from which they can't yet escape.