Being found....and lost!

Here I am. I am here.

Where?

Lost, yet found.

I am lost because I don't know why I am where I am. I know that I have every right and opportunity to be happy, yet....

I started back to school. Actually misleading...about 4 years ago I started back, I am in my 5th year....and getting there with my degree, but taking it slow. I got a scholarship this year, very exciting, and I am taking classes that I want to take for personal reasons this semester, rather than ones that will count, but I am happy, content about them. One of the classes that I am taking is a Marriage and Family class. I am hoping that I will really work out some of my turmoil and tragedy through learning, that I will better recognize the things that are working for me, that are right, and end with sheer gratitude for the family that I am blessed to have now, letting go of the past. I hope to use my experiences to help others in the class to understand some of the difficult subject matter [divorce/abuse/abandonment] that we will be discussing.

One of the first assignments was to write about anything and submit it in test format. This is what I randomly wrote. It was raw and honest, and gives you a sense of where I am:


"Hmmmm, here goes again. I wonder if I didn't save the answer before sending, or if you received my first attempt and then revised this so I am doing it again. I think that I randomly told you about my family last time. I love spending time with them, yet there are times when I wonder if I made the right decision to have a family. So, ....I feel in contradiction with myself. I am looking forward to this course because I am in a place where I am trying to figure myself out. I have all the reasons to be the happiest person on earth. A beautiful and very functional family, security of home and finance, a tender loving amazing husband [can't picture myself without him or doing anything different than I am]. However, I have so much family dysfunction in my past that I feel broken, bruised, abandoned. I wonder....can a wonderful future/present make up for a battered abusive childhood. This question plagues me daily. I am here to discover who I am becoming. My going back to school is very personal and I use every circumstance to truly grow the person that I have the potential of being.

I am very honest and I ramble a lot...."



My next offering here is on being found.

Being found for a sexual abuse survivor is one of the scariest things imaginable. I have been hiding, in a sense, for 22 years now. When my mother abandoned me I became a ward of the state. My real father wouldn't take me so I was fostered by a friends family, a friend I had known for a year, who became my sister, my best friend.

When I got married and changed my name I thought that forever I would be this new person, never be able to be found, yet I have always been afraid. I have always wondered if I will wake up to him standing over me in my bed. I have feared him finding and taking my children. I spent the first 6 years of my children in Elementary School never leaving the school. Finding ways to volunteer, to be there in the classrooms. I had anxiety over taking them to school. It wasn't until I went back to school that I began to relax. To feel safe.

I was firm about never starting a blog, never putting anything with my face, my name, my children out THERE. Vulnerable was not optional for me. I just refused.

...but then...I relaxed. It seemed safe enough. I could block everyone, anyone I didn't know would not have access to me. I became trusting. I started a Facebook account. I blogged privately, and then opened myself up to the world of blogging, my family under psuedo names. I love the communty. I shared my story here.

Yesterday, someone found me.

Someone from my past.

I became "all wadded up" [as my husband puts it].

I stiffened.

I don't know. Can I let this person in? If I do will HE find me.

I cried, I held it in, I sobbed, I quitely weeped.

My husband assured me, "I will never let anyone hurt you. I can and I will protect you."

But there is no amount of protection anyone can offer from the nightmare in my mind, my body. The memories flooded.

What do I do?

I responded to this person.
I love him, my brother.

But he is his son. Will it invite that terror back into my life.

I am being cautious.

Nothing matters more to me than my kids and my siblings.

My brother, this brother has a daughter. Has she been victimized by HIM? Has she hurt like I do? I have to find out. Years ago I should have been more involved, protective, out spoken.

What if my silence caused her pain?