“I Will Pray for You”- Why that Triggers my Anxiety

I met with my Pastor yesterday and he gave me some insight and some hard challenges. I will talk more about it when I am up for it but right now I will just keep it brief. One of the things that has always caused anxiety for me is my Trigger words that take me back to my Spiritual force fed abuse from my mother (that I still get).

My pastor gave me the challenge to think of a new happy memory and attach it to those words, give the word either a new meaning or say something different completely. He explained to me that every word we know, that I know, is neutral. We attach, I attach, specific meanings and memories to it.

For example, some words I cannot stand to hear. It urks me, it makes my blood boil and hatred to rise up in me. One of those words is PRAY. I hate that word. When I think of PRAY I think of the hypocrisy people use (my mother included) to “pray for you”. Some of the meanest people say that, “Well bless your heart, I will pray for you.” When you have done nothing wrong. I feel that there is a double meaning attached to that word and it isn’t meant to be sincere.

Instead of saying pray, prayer, praying.. I will refer it to as “talking to God” or “talk to Him”. That is essentially what I am doing anyways. I am just taking out the trigger word. Even just typing the word or thinking of the memories attached to the word “pray” makes me want to punch someone.

That is all the brain power I have today. I am hoping to make a list of words that trigger me in the next couple posts… but the issue with that is I don’t like being triggered. lol

You Don’t Have To

I read a challenge on a friend’s post that despite the things that I can get overwhelmed with that I should to post a status with 2 blessings in it. I have to be honest, sometimes the negatives or the worries stick out in my mind the most. It took me a few to really dig past the norm. I have been blessed by God’s understanding. I used to feel the need to be perfect at everything or have everything perfect. Now I am learning that it is okay to not be and to have a little crazy in my life and that I don’t need to be perfect. I have also been blessed by God’s peace. I have faced some really hard challenges recently & if I sit and think about too much I will cry my eyes out. It is really hard to explain but I will do my best to. People have different definitions and standards of what a “Christian” should do, be, dress, behave, devote and many more “opinions”. To be frank, it is quite a lot to take in and I feel a lot of pressure to be something I am not. Since when is it too much to ask to just show love to all like Jesus did? To be kind, supportive, understanding, giving, loving, encouraging, considerate, thoughtful, forgiving. I am very guilty of letting my opinion dictate what I see in people and I forget to see the person for who they are and where they are in life. I can honestly say I don’t feel like I am the “standard” or the “stereotypical” Christian. I am just me, who happens to believe in Faith because of how He saved my life. I am so very blessed in not having the pressure to be the “standard” anymore. I don’t have to memorize verses, I don’t have to go to church every Sunday, I don’t have to tithe 10% every week, I don’t have to do daily devotions, I don’t have to pray every meal, I don’t have to dress in skirts/dresses… I don’t have to. If you want to, that is fine but you don’t have to. What is in my heart matters and He knows what is in it. That kind of peace is amazing to be able to have, and his understanding of where I am at and why, is an unexplainable relief. Happy Sunday everyone.

Sundays are a Trigger

I have until July 1st to see my therapist so time is precious. She told me a story about how when you talk about old wounds in a safe place and work through them & the emotions it brings to you- you are cleaning your abscess.

Abscesses are wounds within the skin full of pus and without proper treatment, they grow inside you destroying more flesh and causing more pain. But when an abscess is treated, the doctor has to go in and remove all the toxins, pus, dead flesh and clean the wound. That leaves you with a huge, tender opened hole.

Sundays feel like that to me. I had to go to church every sunday and put a smile on my face. I had to hide the abuse, go through the ritual of sunday morning church, worship, tithe, notes, prayer, communion and more.

Now since my abscess has been cleaned out and I have cut out the poison in my life- I had a huge triggers aka open holes when it comes to my Christian beliefs, sundays, prayer and worship. You would think that once you deal with pain and the emotional turmoil that you get better and feel better. My reality is I actually trigger easier, have migraines, I get so mentally exhausted and my nightmares are worse/more frequent.

I confronted my therapist about this. I am so puzzled as to why I FEEL more things. I used to just be numb and stuff things down inside of me. Now I am feeling every emotion all at once sometimes. With her soft smile and warm eyes she told me that she is proud of me.

I had to check me ears. Excuse me? You said you are proud of me? Have you been listening to the stories I have just been telling you? I feel worse! I trigger more easily and I am so exhausted anymore. How can you be proud of me when I feel so horrible, overwhelmed and just guilty for not being able to even say a full prayer for more than 10 seconds?!

My therapist simply smiled at me again. “Have you felt the need to self harm?” I looked at her blankly for a second. I answered no and that kind of surprised myself actually. I always turn to self harm when  I get overwhelmed and I hadn’t thought about that once recently when it used to be an everyday thought. She told me it is because I am allowing myself to feel my emotions and go through it.

It is like the default way I deal with things is to cut and stuff. Since I have turned away from those as a natural response- I am now no longer numb, depressed and stuffing. I am feeling, vulnerable, experiencing and dealing. That is why she is proud of me. Realizing that- I am proud of myself. It takes hard work to be in this place. It takes even harder work to allow yourself to feel.

I just can’t wait until my open sore is healed for good.

Speaking in Quotes

 

 

I love getting birthday cards, emails and letters from family members around my birthday. It is so enlightening and I feel so loved when that happens. But there is one person who always sends me cards or emails that all she does is speak in quotes from the bible.

This makes my insides want to puke. I myself have a very hard time with my relationship with Christ as it is. Sometimes I can’t even sit in a church that I love because the triggers are so bad. Here recently since my birthday I haven’t been able to bring myself to do my daily devotions or prayers.

On one of my birthdays a couple years ago I got a card that said,”Thank God you are alive one more year to serve him.” And that was it. Nothing else was said. No “I love you” “I miss you” “Happy Birthday” “You mean so much to me”…. it hurt. I was shocked.

I still can’t even bring myself fully think about it but this most recent birthday and card was the same. The card was blank on the inside and my m. wrote in it from cover to cover. All the words that were in it were just quotes from the bible. It breaks my heart.

How in the world can I get over it? I mean I know to not expose myself to it but what about the times I can’t help? She is my mother, which means family. I don’t want to cut myself off from everyone of my family members on her side just to avoid her. I know I need to be stronger and I want to get there.

Honestly, sometimes I really don’t even like to think about being a Christian. I know being a Christian is to be loving, sweet, forgiving and to be kind. But the home I grew up in it was manipulative, judging, rules, harshness, grudges, discipline, abuse- nothing about love and forgiveness. And that is what I think about at first. I really hope God understands. I don’t want to be like this. This is probably one of the worst triggers I have currently.

The Little Girl

I am sorry for not posting in the last day or two, after No Noise- I had to emotionally take a break. That incident was really traumatic for me. Since Easter is literally just around the corner I thought this would be the perfect time to tell you how I got to know the real Jesus. If this is the first blog you are reading of mine then you wouldn’t quite understand that statement.

I have setup a time to regularly see a counselor/therapist for my anxiety, depression and traumas. One of the forms of abuse she pointed out to me was my Spiritual Abuse I get from my m. Spiritual abuse is hard to overcome because it turns God into the bad guy when in reality he is not.

The Abuser will switch or manipulate God’s word to make you fit into the mold they wish for you to be in. So for example, my abuser always wanted to be right and be in charge. So the passage “Children obey your parents with all your heart-” is forever engrained in my brain, as well as “spare the rod, spoil the child.”

In my opinion that is a horrible way to grow up. I was taught about God and all the “Sunday School” stories but it was never about his tenderness or his true love. Love to me was a foreign concept. We would discuss it just like it was a thing, not an action.

Of course I have heard the story over and over about how he died for us and rose again and we are saved. But that sounds quite generic to me. It doesn’t have any personal attachment to me at all. I was more so taught of his anger if you didn’t obey him.

When I was little I accepted Jesus into my heart to please my m. Not because I understood what I was doing but to see her smile, to be proud of me and to draw me closer to her. It didn’t work. The spiritual abuse- the memorization, the stories, the fakery was getting worse- so I forgot about Jesus.

When I was 10 I was attacked by our dog in the face and skull (The Trees’ Secret blog). I remember sitting there in the hospital bed and truly feeling his protection over me but I still didn’t quite get it. I carried on without him. When I was 14 my dad received custody of me, which I talk about in The Switch blog.

My m. still had visitation with me and when I was about 14-16 I harbored some serious anger. I still don’t quite understand why I am so full of rage at times but it was bad. I drifted far away from anything that reminded me of Jesus because that reminded me of the abuse and the abuser.

All my life I just wanted someone who I could speak to freely and understand my pain and just be there. But no matter how many times I tried to explain- I just couldn’t find the words. I had no idea what I was going through or why I felt the way I did.

When I was 18- I was raped, which I talk about some of the flashbacks in the No Noise blog. I still didn’t heavily rely on Jesus at all. I wanted to do what I wanted. Why was I to listen to someone who was forced down my throat and was all about rules?

After the rape I became very promiscuous, sleeping with dozens of men. I got a thrill out of being wanted and desired. It made me feel sexy, powerful and fulfilled my need of being wanted that I longed for. It wasn’t until I was around 21-22 that I met my future husband and things changed. We both weren’t living the way we were supposed to but it was just something about him that made me want to be with him. I had never had a serious boyfriend before and didn’t really ever truly want one- he was the first.

It wasn’t until my cancer scare and being told I had a sexually transmitted infection that brought me to my knees. I felt nasty, dirty and filthy. I had to get a biopsy to check if the tissue on my cervix was indeed cancerous or not. We got the results back and it was clear. Nothing was there and the infection cleared up with antibiotics. I knew right then and there God had protected me. I had not had a single real pregnancy scare in all the times I had have sex, no STDs and no cancer.

It still didn’t really sink in about God’s love for me until I realized one day that all I ever wanted was someone to be there.  To know what kind of experience I had gone through. I always felt too scared to talk to anyone in the family because no one ever saw what my abuser was truly like. No one ever felt the loneliness I felt growing up. Who would believe me?

Everything with my m. is so rehearsed. Even at Easter Sunday Church or dinner she will say “He is Risen” and you are supposed to say “He is Risen indeed”. I am sorry but since when does it matter what you say or how you say it? Why is it a rule? It just feels completely fake and impersonal. Why not tell the story of how he spoke to your heart? Or of how he was treated?

There is a country song called The Little Girl by John Michael Montgomery, I had heard it before several times but never actually listened to it. I don’t want to spoil it for you if you haven’t heard it but even though that isn’t my life at all- the meaning at the end is the same. Jesus was there.

That melted my stone cold heart of bitterness I had towards everyone. I didn’t like anyone, I didn’t trust anyone, I didn’t care about anyone but when I listened to this song- it all melted away. My future husband and I got back into church, closer to our family and really started to understand God’s love for us. He pulled us both out of the darkness and God offered me a shoulder to cry on.

He knows everything I have been through, he still loves and cherishes me even though some people still despise me. He took everything that I was ashamed about and wiped it away. I still remember the things I did but the guilt is gone because I know I am forgiven from all the horrible things I did to myself and to others.

I know it’s hard because he isn’t physically here to be with you during your journey or mine. And sometimes to be honest- I resent him for that. I doubt him sometimes. I lose faith. I get angry. I don’t have all the answers. I am not perfect at all. I don’t go to church every sunday and I don’t pray before EVERY meal but it is something I am not judged on. He knows my heart. Even though we don’t have the perfect relationship- I strive to be better.  I am  his and love him with all heart. Why? Because he was there and always will be there for me.

“Cause He was there in my old house-
He held me close to His side”

John Michael Montgomery

The Little Girl