honest scrap AWARD!

THANK YOU BUTTERFLY KISSES, FOR THE AWARD!

...with this award i have to post 10 HONEST things about myself.

FYI: i posted this on my family blog too, some of you might have seen it there. it is important for me to keep this journal private, but i also felt that the HONEST SCRAP was best suited HERE. so, as i shared both places, please keep my identity here for here.
THANK you my friends.

here goes:

1. i really am not good at keeping up with my house. i save EVERYTHING. i want to de-clutter but don't have the courage to do it. IT DRIVES ME CRAZY. I have a hard time having people over. I never used to be like this. A year ago I had my idea of PERFECTION.

Somewhere I crash and burned, and we are all suffering for it. My kids are on board to organize, they have the energy so it will get done.

2. Instead of food storage, we have toys and chocolate. I stress that we don't have enough to provide in time of necessity. This goes along with number one. De-clutter, and get food storage in order. And with number three, as you get the feeling that I am making a list: TO DO

3. I make crazy lists. I write everything down that I need to do everyday. Without the list I can't seem to function. I spend more time making the list than it would take to do have the things on the list. I reorganize my list; for efficiency, which requires rewriting them. I live by the list. I also make my kids live by a LIST. A checklist: home from school, wash hands, check, snack, check, pet care, check, chore, check, practice piano/guitar, check, homework, check, help with dinner chores, check, dinner, check, scriptures, check, journal, check, brush teeth, check, pajamas, check, prayers, check, 30 minutes reading, check. [compulsive behaviour passed along to the kids, another need for therapy when they get older.]

4. I can eat a half a gallon of ice cream during one movie.

5. I am writing a healing journal to try to break free from the pain of abuse and abandonment in my childhood. [that was a hard one to write, and not embelish or minimize, just honest] I wont ramble about this one.

6. I blog in layers. One for family, private, one for cyber friends [now i am being too honest], and one to spill my guts, my healing, very private.

7. I blog too much. (ouch, that was hard to admit.)

8. I know that there are some people reading this that will talk about me behind my back. I know who they are and it does hurt my feelings. Hey, you know who you are. This was not easy for me to be honest about. How about we just try to be nice?

9. I love serving in my church. I may be a broken mess about my gospel, but I believe in it with all my heart. I love the Savior, he is my friend, my partner in healing, my guide. I am thankful.

10. My kids are my delight, they are my everything. When I am with them, and with my husband, all is well; laughter is present, sometimes tears,

we may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

Amen to all these honest revelations about me. It is more than I wanted to know, so I can imagine how you feel. I just have to remind myself that this exercise is good for me, and that it is for ME. So there I have it. And what have I learned, oh, the growing pains of being honest about yourself.

I NOW AWARD:

Prayer Girl

AlkySeltzer

Atiyanna

Lulabelle

Gabrielle Moonlight

Psych Client

Amysplash

strong and determined

shadow

broken child

quiet rage

one tough cookie: Kim

April Optimist

survivors can thrive

If you don't want to do this, don't feel any pressure.

This is my honest sCRAP.

Actually, this is the same thing that I posted on my family blog. This will be the first thing that I blend about myself; who I am, in both places [besides my Sunday Funnies! Which are all real; honest! ☺]. This is HONESTLY me. #8 doesn't have anything to do with YOU all here. You are my support, I appreciate you. So this is more like a SHOUT OUT.

THanks aGAin. for your support. ♥

thanks ....then giving

my friends who read me:

this award is for all of you, from me.
please copy it and put it on your blog!
as well as the star commenter award below.
and thanks!

hope that this finds you having
something to give thanks for,

....then find a way to be giving.

even if it is just giving a comment
to someone out here in cyber world
who needs to know you are there.

that they are not alone.
i really believe we can make a difference.

i know you have in mine.

so find 11 people today (i like odd numbers),
11 bloggers who are hurting or lonely, trying to heal.

comment in a way that you can cheerfully say i care.
the way you do for me.


thanks, and let the giving be the best part of your thanksgiving.


today i am thankful for.....YOU!

thanks for being here for me.

for amy

I know how much courage it took for you to write about the abuse you suffered.

we care. you are amazing.

you are always so sweet to me.
friend, i am here. we are here.
please take care.

and this [below] is because
you like things that glitter.

right click, copy to your pictures, and then post
as a picture in your layout options.

luv ya dear..


and you lovely readers who comment and are so kind.
above (Nov. 27th) is a post that says THANKS.
my thanks gifting!
i thank you for being here to hear me.
you take the award there.
ALL of you deserve recognition
for being my super cyber friends.

thanksgiving

this time of year brings so much up for me. i know i have written about this before which made me not want to write about it again, for the sake of anyone who would think, she said that already.

then i realized that i have the kindest people reading my healing journal. and if anyone did say that i could do what AlkySeltzer said and just "reject" the comments.

I think that in itself gave me power. and got me thinking.

no one can hurt me that i don't allow to anymore.
it is up to me.

if someone wanted to leave a nasty comment,... who knows, maybe my family would find this and being upset they would want to comment something irrational to me but justified to them,
or Bob, my abuser, my step-dad, who knows, he could even find it.

What would i do with that? hummmm.

but to know that i can say no, i can reject anything that is not positive and helpful to my healing...thank you for that.



and, i write for me to heal, and i thank YOU for reading me. You all are my person. i appreciate you so much



saying no. my baby sister and i were talking today about how hard it is to say no. when you are raised in such a dominant environment, where the lashings come quickly, and the abuse is so abusive. you don't learn that you have a choice; in anything.

even whether or not you want to go somewhere for thanksgiving. people beg, plead, manipulate you into a corner and then you give in. and then you beat your own self up about not saying no, and sticking to it, and even though tomorrow hasn't come and you could just not go,

you know you will go because you have been bullied.

have i told you before how badly i hate bully's.

i told my sister she ought to call and say the answer was no every time that you asked, but you had to molest my answer and push me into saying yes. i am uncomfortable with you thinking that you can bully me into coming to a family dinner.

NO IS NO. and then just don't go.

easy for me to say, hard for me to do.

tomorrow i will be having thanksgiving with my adopted (foster) family.
I usually have an orphan thanksgiving at my own home.
it has been easier for me to do the dinner,
be in charge, and be in charge of who I invite.
rather than being at the mercy of the events of these family holidays.

this year i feel strong enough and i am going to go.

behind this strength i do feel a bit vulnerable.
not that my pain is what will be hard to deal with, but the pain of my family.

this is the time of year when my adopted mom died.
i have written about it as I explained why i write mile 191.

i talked to my foster sister yesterday. she is really depressed and not sure how she is really dealing with the events of thanksgiving, and the holidays in general.
her mom, my mom, was always in St. Benedict's, or jail, or passed out at the holidays.

she, my sister, told me that she is having a harder time than usual this year.


my adopted moms birthday is the 29th, saturday.
it is also the day that she died, although the coroner put her death date on the 28th, so we didn't feel so bad. how that helps i still don't know.

today, the 26th is the day that she left.

it was thanksgiving. she had too many drugs, again. there was a fight.

i was so confused. this family had been taking care of me.

they had been loving me, security, a haven from all that i had been through.

and now, this haven, was crumbling around me

when she left,

she took the family that i knew them to be with her.

she left on thanksgiving. she died on her birthday. we buried her on december 3rd,

it was a brisk, beautiful, cold day.

but the pain is still there, there is no burying the pain and destruction that has been left behind.

and thanksgiving will bring many of those pains to surface again. for my sisters, for my dad, for my brother, for me.

thanksgiving should be about gratitude.
i want to be able to focus on the things that i am thankful for.
i have, in my world of pretending.
of maintaining my good person persona.
i am happy, i express gratitude, i help others.


then i come to my closet,

and i fall apart,
broken,
bleeding all my emotion,
the pain.
the suffocation of darkness,
and no where to hide.

terror awaits, as night comes again.
and tomorrow, i will face new light, the day, what will it bring.
more memories, writing about my dreams, my secrets.

no one can hurt me unless i allow them to.

i have the courage to choose healing.

i will see tomorrow with a fresh perspective, focus on gratitude, and write, as Amy does...

Today, I am thankful for... YOU. ♥

THANKS ... trying to stay calm ♥♥♥

Someone reads me.

And not just the me who writes all the pleasantries.
THANKS. It means a lot.

This award is for you....i think it might be one you don't have yet. But if not, it means a lot to me to give it to you....so... (right click/copy, and know I give it with hope to heal, and thankfulness for someone reading me, even if it might not be so pleasant.)
Now I get to pass along an award, or few....

I pass awards to the following people.

Amysplash - because she always checks on me and every time I check there is something new to inspire me to keep healing. Thank you. Here's to you:

To Marj aka thriver , thanks for the comments, i hope you continue to heal:
To psych client, thanks for the comments, to me and to others. It really helps to read such kindness:
To Lulabelle, for the inspiration and laughs, and for teaching me there is beauty in the breaking. love your blogging:

To strong and determined , first for surviving incest, for talking about it, breaking the silence, and for introducing me to a song that I have fallen to pieces to one minute, and written myself up off the floor the next, thanks:
this award goes to one tough cookie, i like you just the way you are:

and to Janet, Hi there =), for telling me that I am not alone:
TO ALL OF YOU:

Thanks for being there!
To take your award, right click on it, copy to your pictures, and then upload through your blog as a photo. Enjoy. You all mean a lot to me right now.