To Become A Butterfly

Warning: the following blog post contains graphic imagery and the subject of suicide that some readers may find triggering. Please proceed at your own discretion… You know your limits best.






* * *






I find myself driving alongside a straight road that seems to stretch infinitely ahead of me, and infinitely behind me. Like my own future and past, I am aware both have a defined beginning, and a defined ending, though from where I am neither beginning nor ending are in sight.






The trees reach outwards in all directions. As the wind blows, I can somehow feel its current in the hairs in my arms as it weaves through the leaves on the trees. I feel parts of myself drawn in every direction at the slightest nudge; a swaying in the current of the air.






The sun, like consciousness itself, can never illuminate every shadow, no matter how brightly it shines.






A blue, expansive lake filled with beautiful white lilies passes, shortly after revealing a gun shop in a rugged small town. It’s as if all at once I am reminded the two are a part of the same earth, even though it’s hard to fully grasp at times.






Breathing back into my body, I am once again a separate being whose hair moves to the wind of my own current, as the trees in the distance dance to their own ancient melodies that only momentarily intersect.






A lot of change has taken place the past two weeks. My time at the ecovillage came to a halt when I found myself no longer able to keep up with the demands of a 50-hour week without pay. With a traumatic past that still needs much processing, it’s a wonder I lasted the two months that I did.






Soon my darkness that I had on some level tried to work away, came back with a gravity that could not be resisted. Like a black hole, the shadowy gash that runs up my belly and towards my heart prevents any light from emerging… Instead, I can feel the sorrow pulling energy from around it to compensate.






This darkness has come from a past that has shaped much of who I am today. My desire to heal was birthed as a result of my narcissistic father’s covert emotional and physical abuse.






While I had been making strides in my recovery as I began to become more independent, I was shocked to find that I had began observing narcissistic tendencies in my last (and first) romantic partner.






Like an Oedipus complex, I knew on a logical level that I was likely to be attracted to narcissists as a result of my father. Nonetheless, when the subtle changes began to escalate, I reached a breaking point.






I firmly believe that a breakup does not need to be hurtful. Conflict is an opportunity for growth, always, and if there are conflicts that cannot be resolved






For a long time afterwards, I was not able to access the memories of the break. I knew that it had been bad, I knew that he had intentionally set out to hurt me, and ultimately I felt very confused. As I would be working in the fields, the memories started to come back and I would find myself in a sense re-living the experiences I had suppressed.






My high school psychology teacher used to say: A frog that is thrown in boiling water jumps out straight away, because it knows that it is dangerous. However; a frog that is put in cool water that is slowly brought to a boil will actually let itself become cooked alive.






It’s far easier to notice big change as it happens. But most change is not quick or loud; Most change simmers, slowly building, until one day we wake up and realize that we are in a bad place.






Whenever I feel unable to cope with what life gives me, my mind goes straight to suicide as an option.






Though it already seems so far away from the highway that stretches before me, just the day prior, I had nearly taken my own life.






Memories flash of my father’s abuse and my last relationship’s hurtful end and I am reminded with painful clarity that no matter where I run in life, I will always have these memories.






To be honest, I don’t quite remember how it got out that I was feeling suicidal. I broke down crying several days in a row, unable to continue working due to physical and emotional exhaustion. I think I mentioned it sometime in my breakdown, but it took several days for the pain to compound and spiral out of control.






As much as I loved the forest, the clouds and bright blue sky, the rows of plants blowing softly in the breeze; As much as I loved the people I met at the community and the courage I was able to summon to make the jump, they were not enough reason for me to see the good in staying on Earth.






There were times when I felt lost; I asked the stars and the moon to give me answers. I sat alone in an abandoned church, the light filtering through stained glass windows, Why am I here? I would ask.






Why do I deserve to be hurt?






I go to the creekside, as questions ate away at my mind.






Though I wanted her to save me, the Earth could only hold me.






One more day, I’d tell myself. Just make it one more day. I’d try to cry but I could not access the tears. The numbness was worse than any amount of pain.






It was not until I was told that I was at risk of being thrown in a psych ward or otherwise being forcibly removed by the leader of the farm that I realized the complete lack of understanding that exists around emotional crises.






What began as wanting to take an emotional sick day (which, to me, looked like a day of sleep) soon turned into scrambling for a home in a race against time. Nobody asked me why I felt like ending my life. In some ways it seemed like nobody cared. Instead I experienced the complete resistance that most people have towards negative emotion, to the shadow self. I became a symbol of the shadow self to the others, and as a reflection of their treatment towards their own shadow self, I was cast out.






I was feeling most hopeless and, not surprisingly, more suicidal than ever before upon being completely ostracized for feeling bad. It seemed to confirm a latent belief that there was something wrong with me; something that only starting all over again could fix. Like flipping a switch, I was back to square one again.






As I found myself entering another dark night of the soul where I was confronting possible homelessness, a series of synchronicities suddenly gave me a place to stay. My mom happened to mention that my uncle knew a girl who had been staying at the same farm. I remember being angry when I first read that message, because she had actually left several months prior for the similar reason of clashing with the leader of the community.






The next day, another man who was leaving the community said that the same girl and her boyfriend had heard about my situation and offered me a place to stay. Just like that, I was reminded again that sometimes the universe has its own way of working things out. As my close friend advised, I left the next day, not daring to look back.






I was a mess as I moved into a small trailer on the new farm… For the first few days all I did was sleep and cry. Then I would occasionally leave the trailer to talk to the couple who had kindly offered me a place to stay, but I began to feel self conscious about my dark mental state.






I felt like being suicidal was a dark secret that I needed to keep hidden for my own protection. I was terrified that I would eventually be kicked out again for being a basket case, and so I hid out in isolation as I tried to let go of the painful memories that were claiming my present.






People don’t understand that a breakup from a narcissist is nothing like a normal breakup. Instead, I was left emotionally crippled from the extreme verbal abuse. I was left degraded by the fact that I was begging him to stop hurting me, and no amount of begging left me spared. I was left confused because at one point he was yelling at me and I got a warm fuzzy feeling in my stomach; a feeling that was completely out of place considering I was being abused. I was left uncertain because I thought he was a safe person I could trust, and I was wrong. I was so wrong, and I wonder how I can trust myself again.






I did all this healing, I remember thinking to myself, in order to end up back here again? Like many ‘arguments’ with an abusive person, I had dissociated for much of it. It scared me to see how many gaps were in my memory.






Remember. Remember. I wanted to remember. That’s the thing; even though the dissociation is there to protect me, when it happens often enough I begin to logically think that maybe things weren’t as bad as I feel they were.






Blink. He is screaming at me to shut the fuck up. I had been asking him why he never asked questions of people, did he just assume he knew other people, without ever asking?






Why could he ignore someone he supposedly loves? Why he could go hours, days without me crossing his mind? The memory goes black.






I had taken care of him when he was sick. He had a fever. He told me to leave but I thought that was nonsense. He had a whole apartment to move, and so I helped him move... After all, we were still together; a team. We’re a team, right?






In return, I got berated for asking why he seemed so emotionally distant. That’s when the abuse started, and my mind goes black for the most part. Why?






I stare at the light blue ceiling in the small trailer. The sound of cicadas and frogs is the ambience to my thoughts, and I lie on a perfectly white mattress, drenched in sweat.






This is where I want to die, I think to myself.




I imagine my soul leaving, leaving. More memories flash.






I am begging him to not leave me on my own. I am asking him why he doesn’t care that I am being hurt, why he is leaving me alone when he knows it is hurting me. He walks out the door.






I have no car, no way of going anywhere. I am stranded in a unique form of isolation torture; unique because on some level I consented to it. I hear the door slam as he leaves me behind. Why can’t I come with you? It’s not a good idea, he said. So did she. This is really hurting my feelings, I say. But they look away. I was never welcome.






The entire time he was gone I tried to distract myself. Distract from the urge to slit my wrists. The loneliness. It was the worst experience I had ever survived… Worse than my dad screaming at me to kill myself.






It is always easier to point out what’s there, than what’s not. Isolation is an invisible killer.






Do you remember that? I message him. I am back in the trailer, and the heat is building. The sweat drips from my neck. I wish I had been the one to say fuck you to him. But I had nowhere to go, same then as I did now. This time, I was stronger.






Do you remember when I was begging you to not hurt me, and you kept going? I ask.






Did I deserve it?






He starts getting worried. He sends me the suicide hotline number. I laugh to myself. He thinks I would call it. I am so beyond help at this point.






ANSWER ME. I say. No answer. That’s fine. I’m used to this. But I am going to ask him until he tells me the only thing I need to hear.






DID I FUCKING DESERVE IT? DO I FUCKING DESERVE TO BE HURT? DO I FUCKING DESERVE TO DIE?






Stop. I allow myself to sit in the loneliness. I haven’t dosed myself yet so I may still survive. I won’t dose myself for the next hour.






He says he’s getting worried. Haha… isn’t that funny? He’s so funny. Why bully someone and then worry when they snap?






No, you didn’t deserve it, the message reads on my phone. Good. I’m going to take this last drop of kindness from him and run.






I weave in and out of consciousness. Sleep claims me for a brief while. Time is nowhere, only now.






The sweat covers me like a thin, satin sheet. And slowly, I am no longer here in this trailer. I let my mind go where it wants to go.






I am at the lake. Beautiful trees surround me, swaying. The water is still and gentle. This is the place where I had imagined dying so many times before.






Are you ready? The clouds ask. Of course I am… I feel myself floating upwards, vibrating. Light… I feel… light.






I saw her body lying on the ground beneath, embedded in between grass. I begin to stretch outwards, encompassing the sky.






Some hikers find her body. They call the police and the investigation begins. They carry her body and search for her keys. They are able to find identification, a driver’s license from Colorado. They do not seem sad, they only frown, wondering what the hell was wrong with her.






They look at her car. This girl is strange. They search for clues but there is none. There is no evidence of anything. She didn’t write a letter in her frenzy.






It was hard seeing her mother cry. I had never seen something like that in my entire life… She was at the house. The dogs and cats knew something was wrong, and they watched her with questioning, anxious eyes.






I am crying. Tears mixed with sweat. Salt, and more salt. Water.






Wherever the impact of my death reaches, I am there. I move out to see siblings, my younger brothers. They all are shocked. They huddle together in a hug around my mother. I see them slowly break down, their masculine exteriors giving way to scared children.






My dad glazes over when he hears the news. He doesn’t cry much, only alone when nobody is watching. He seems almost angry that she left. He avoids the pain through distractions. He tells himself it isn’t his fault, and he believes it. He can believe anything he wants to believe and it is reality.






My extended family comes together to see my mom… People are crying. Strangers, crying.






And they all say I am a friend; strangers, people I’ve never even met, tell others; a friend of mine committed suicide.






They gather, wearing black. My family groups together in a bunch; my dad keeps his distance. He keeps on glazing over, then excusing himself to the restroom.






And I am suddenly aware of something.






This whole time, I thought that if I killed myself it would show all the ones who hurt me how much they hurt me. But that wasn’t the case at all. I watch as they all dissociated when they heard the news. They did know that they were the reason on some level, but they brushed it off, saying there was more going on than just their own abuse. Soon, the notion became completely subconscious.






My boyfriend glazed over when he heard the news. He had, at first, no reaction whatsoever. But then he would be alone. He would scream at himself when he was alone. He would scream bloody murder, swearing “FUCK” over and over again, before resorting back to numbness. I didn’t see the tears come until much later.






I watch family members go up to my mom and cry… and hug her. No mother should ever witness the death of her daughter, they’d say. Her eyes were puffy and red, but she was strong. My grandmother helped look after her for the next few weeks. They became much closer.






The funeral was over quickly. Nobody really knew what to say for consolation. The entire feeling of the room was one of fear. People feared what it meant for the world if people like me were committing suicide. A whole darkness came upon the people there.






My father stayed alive, he continued hurting people, while my mother lived her life quietly and with dignity, but utterly heartbroken. She was perhaps the only one who knew the truth that he pushed me to that point, and it was killing her. The guilt of what she could have done differently was killing her, literally. Her health deteriorated as time went by; perhaps quicker than it would have been if it hadn’t happened. But it did.






My heart ached as I watched her, as I watched the hard shells of my brothers crumble in grief. I watched my father move on and forget about me, I watched my last partner move on through life in a dissociated fugue for a while.






More than watching the people who I wanted to be impacted the most by my death move on the quickest, I could not shake the feeling of grief at the pain I caused those I loved the most. Pain caused by the simple act of leaving.






I watch them; time moves on. They heal. Sometimes, when the wind blows, they think of me, and they will get a pang of sadness mixed with gratitude. They have their own lives to live; small wins to claim, and some big wins…. And time keeps moving.






I enter the void. I am nothingness, simplicity. I am experience itself unembodied. What is to come of the earth? I cannot know, really know, because I am not a part of it. I am it.






The part in my chest that was once a black hole, I noticed, suddenly filled with love. Suddenly, I remember why I’m still here. I can’t leave them… I love them too much…






I come back into the room. An orange light filters shakily through the window; fading to dusk. The tears stream down and I feel the darkness begin to leave my stomach.




Finally, I feel a release.





* * *




A lime green caterpillar slowly makes its way across the table, crawling directly towards my arm. I am sitting at a picnic table with the leader of the ecovillage I had stayed for the past two months.




We were discussing things about my future, eyes looking forward. Eventually the caterpillar crawls up onto my arm.




At the time, I know it's a sign. Yet, my ego feels indignant. "No way I'm a caterpillar! I have made it so far, only to become a caterpillar again?"




I carry it to a nearby Echinacea flower, where it begins to munch on a leaf.






Like the caterpillar, I am just beginning… I am crawling along in search for sustenance (caterpillars spend most of their time eating, and mulching).




The sustenance I crave, however, is one of an emotional nature.






One day I hope to soar past all limitations, and break through all barriers. But the caterpillar teaches this process cannot be rushed.




Becoming a butterfly requires a breaking down of every cell in its body in order to become completely transformed.






Like the caterpillar, I am on a journey. I am searching for a place to build my cocoon, so I may become transformed.






I ask for your positive focus and prayers as I continue on this path of healing. <3

In The Place Of My Dreams

In the middle of walking through a wooded forest, I became aware that I was in a dream.

Tree after tree passed of seemingly infinite wooded trunks passed as I trudged forward along a rocky pathway. Behind them, huge rocks emerged, occasionally giving way to a view of a forested landscape beneath. I was already high up on the mountainside, but I continued to walk uphill.

Ahead, there was a series of cabins. As I continued, I noticed others. I tried entering one of the cabins, but a man up on the balcony let me know that I wasn’t allowed to enter.

He pointed to a building up ahead, where I noticed others were walking. “That building,” He said. “That’s where you want to go.”

I followed his finger. A cabin that was wider than the rest was up ahead. I followed in the direction his fingertips faced as others still gravitated, forwards, forwards.

Passing a few cabins on the way, I entered the door of the wide cabin.

The walls were grey in a softly lit room. The walls were lined with pots and pans, and a counter against the back wall. The counter continued through a small walkway, giving way to a sink.

In the middle of the room, there was a table lined with chairs. Several people sat and stood in the small clearing before the kitchen, talking, moving, holding up various objects.

The dream comes to a close, fading to a soft black. I awaken with only the memory of its warmth.

Breathing in, I find myself in the present.

I stand in the very room I visited in my dream nearly a month before I had ever physically been there before. Drawing in a silent breath, or barely breathing at all, I felt the tears begin to well.

The place in my dream.. It's real.

The walls, the floor, the kitchen and the tables. They all vibrated with a familiar frequency, a warm hum that seemed to stir the very core of my soul.

I was called here.

ONE YEAR AGO

A listing for an established Ecovillage caught my eye as I browsed the ic.org website, daydreaming about a better way of living... After finding out my Morgellons disease was caused by an extreme sensitivity to GMO foods, I found myself being pulled away from life in the city. I was also pleasantly surprised to find it was nearby where I lived currently, with my boyfriend of several years in Indiana.

 After writing up the application and discovering I didn’t have the stamps needed to send it, I tucked the application away in another bag, soon forgetting about it.

Living in the city had been very difficult for me. Looking back from where I am now, it’s apparent to me that I will probably never go back to living in the city. Life had become quite hostile for me as I struggled to fit into a society in which I felt alien.

My extreme GMO sensitivity was only the beginning of my reasons for being drawn away from society…

Not being able to blend in has been a curse in many ways, because those who don’t blend in or feel like they belong with others frequently become targets of abuse. At that time, I was threatened at my job, bullied by a roommate of mine, and was yet again targeted by my dad. I was then told that it was my fault my father abused me by another bully.

Emotionally crippled but too powerless to create change, I would daydream about moving to intentional communities even though the entire concept of being safe was completely foreign to me.

Afraid and tired of being emotionally battered, I found myself withdrawing from the world, though planting seeds for connection through small means; mainly, by sharing whatever spiritual insights I was receiving at the time to others.

The experiences of extreme illness and abuse in many ways forced me to question the entire reality I found myself in. I found that by seeking to understand and make sense of my own life I was able to better understand the world at large.

Though physically I had changed location, emotionally I found myself in a very similar space months later.

One night, I found myself alone. I was doing my own thing as I ran back and forth between rooms while listening to music.

 I went into my bedroom, contemplating the direction I was headed in life but too scared to do anything about it. At the time, it seemed like all I could do was become a sex worker in the hopes that the money would give me the sort of security I longed for.

So I was running back and forth, getting dance gear and putting on costumes, when I walked in the living room.

Right in the middle of the living room floor lay a piece of paper.

How did that get there? I wondered as I approached. I certainly hadn’t moved it.

Walking closer, my breath stopped for a moment.

I hadn’t thought seriously about the Ecovillage in months, yet there the application lay on the middle of the floor, having moved, somehow, completely on its own.

It was a sign. One that I did not logically understand. After all, how could I? There was no explanation for something that was at its core, mysterious. 

But on the other hand this feeling of being a round stick that could not, for the life of me, fit into a square hole, had always been in the undercurrents of every attempt I made to be a functioning member of society.

It seemed like the piece of paper lay there as an answer to my questioning... a subtle nudge, saying, try this instead.

But… My logical mind said… How am I going to get there? I’m not strong enough. I have terrible anxiety. And I don’t know what I’m doing… I have no experience working on a farm, how the hell do I expect to be any help? I’m just going to be a burden…I have so many things to take care of before going. What’s the point of doing it if I am going to fail?

For months, I sat with those thoughts. Following the nudge was at the back of my mind. I felt guilty at times, for being afraid of trusting Spirit. There had been many times I had received guidance before, but I had always been afraid. I had been talking about it for a long time, but I had been terrified at the same time. Who wouldn’t be? At that point in my life, I had basically learned through my life experiences that I was doomed to being perpetually abused or exploited for resources.

I knew if I had to endure much more emotional trauma than I had already experienced in the past, I would snap. Every day it seemed I was closer to committing suicide… It seemed only a matter of time before my demons would get the better of me.

One day, the thought occurred to me that I didn’t want to live in such a way. The ecovillage entered my mind again, a symbol of hope. It was time for me to put my words into action.

What more did I have to lose?

We began to exchange emails. I was invited to the monthly potluck on Sunday, and so I decided to make the three-hour drive to visit.

Even then, I still tried to talk myself out of it. I was terrified, of wanting something that badly. It scared me to want something with my entire being. The thought of not being able to have the only thing that I truly wanted scared the hell out of me.

A quick jolt from the universe snapped me right back to the importance of taking the plunge. A near death experience brought the awareness right back to me.

This is your one life. there is no other chance but now to follow your joy.

I had been resisting being stripped bare. I think that night I realized that I didn’t want to die without experiencing ‘coming back home’ to myself. I had to at least try.

In a society where the oddball is bullied, in a society where the artist is silenced, in a society where sensitivity is punished, I did not belong.

On the drive there, I thought about all the things I had lived through… abuse…  bullies… sickness.

I was ready for release. I wanted to know if life had more to offer me, or if I was damned to keep reliving my past forever.

After a long drive of music, miles upon miles of wooded hills, and farmland, I turned into the entrance, a small dusty road next to a small cemetery and church. A few dogs were barking, and a girl with wavy brown hair was walking along a dusty pathway as I tentatively rolled forward.

“Can I help you?” She asked, smiling warmly.

My voice was quiet from the long drive as I tried to squeakily ask for where to go. The girl directed me to a building that was larger than the rest. I could feel the deja vous creeping up

Soon I found myself opening the door to the building she had shown me, and instantly recognized the room I found myself in as the same from my dream. I felt the tears well up in my eyes, but wanting to be brave, I held them in. I made it, I felt with awe. I finally made it.

I stood in the doorway in awe for what seemed like ages, in complete disbelief that this was my life; that any of it was real, that any of it was happening.

…But it was.

I slowly walked up to a girl and nervously told her I was here for the potluck, and apologized for being late. She directed me over to the food, apologizing that most of it was picked over. I looked, and there was nothing left but a bit of coconut milk made with turmeric. I smiled. I wasn’t really hungry anyways, and I could feel the tears building up, blurring my vision as we continued to walk.

A mild hum of chatter and laughter filled the clearing. Children ran back and forth, as others were talking amongst each other in small groups. Seeing it all through the water, it felt as if I was seeing the world through a haze. I quietly sat down.

The girl who had helped me find food began talking with me… I tried to respond but soon I found myself crying, saying I couldn’t believe there’s another way of living. There was a bit of silence as we both sat and watched the other people interacting.

Some of the others asked if I wanted to help out the next day. I nodded, smiling through the tears.

We spent the day planting tiny sprouts of onions. My muscles ached and pulsated, sore from the simple task of digging my hands in the dirt while squatting. The sun shone from above as clouds migrated with the soft breeze.

The community members asked if I would stay past lunch. I nodded.

We talked out in the fields. Words flew and floated around, words about love, words about farming, words about life… somewhere, between the work of moving the dirt and random joking and teasing, I found a newfound sense of calm that I hadn’t experienced in a very long time.

They asked if I was going to stay for dinner. “I should really go home sometime soon,” I giggled.

Everyone casually joked that I would never end up leaving. But I had already decided this was where I wanted to be, and in order to stay I needed to make preparations. I departed that night.

Change, and more change. Everything was moving but for the first time in years I knew what I wanted; it became a sort of center that I could reside in. I sense the fear within myself as a fluttering pulse; one that was nervous at being completely immersed in a new experience, but equally excited. It felt distinctly different from the other kind of fear that came from being around dangerous individuals.

Finally, I began to open my eyes, and see.

* * *

I was stunned when I came back from this amazing experience and was almost immediately estranged from my love of five years. I wanted the sort of connection where someone wanted to understand me, as much as I wanted to understand them. Our relationship became increasingly strained over the next few weeks.

For so many years I had been resisting seeing that I was not going to get this sort of connection with him. At the end he was saying things with the intent of hurting me.

I couldn’t help but be reminded of the wise words, to love someone is to take them in as yourself. He was hurting me because he was hurting himself.

* * *

The smell of soil and sweet hay fills the air as droplets fall to the ground in all directions. There’s a word for that… petrichor.

I am covered in mud and the reverberating echo of rainfall rushes towards the earth. My hands are nearly numb and my breath shudders in the air around me.

Where am I?

I look through droplet speckled glasses as the quiet roar of rain settles on a lush, hilly landscape. I am on my knees at the end of a row of muddy soil raised above the rest. I use my hands to move the soil aside, planting an onion.

I remember everything that has happened in the past week and everything comes back to me. Mentally I remember: You are Tessa. You moved to an ecovillage and are learning how to farm. Your first love left you shortly before coming here

I feel a sting of pain in my heart that hurts more than all the cold rain in the world.

This is your life now.

Even through the pain, I feel a serenity that pervades my entire being.

I dig my hands in the soil yet again. I want the soil to shape me. I want the earth and mud to mix with my very core. I want my very soul to be shaped by nothing more than the very ground that my own feet have treaded upon; the same soil which everyone I have ever known has treaded upon. As their footsteps have shaped the earth, I want the earth to shape me.

There is no difference between the droplets streaming down upon the earth and my tears. We are one.

By the water, I am held.

* * *

~to be continued~

This changes everything - my story

This changes everything

When we feel a certain way for a very long time, we forget that there is anything else beyond that. With time, what we feel at baseline can become quite different for us than it feels to other people.

On a smaller scale we see ideas vary from person to person. But on a much bigger scale, we see lifestyles and cultural norms vary from all ends of the extreme. Living on earth means living in a place of contrast; and so what is seen as taboo, unheard of, or extreme in one culture, may be perfectly normal in another.

This creates a lot of the disconnect we see in the world. One person's idea of love is another person's idea of hatred. One person's idea of god, is another person's idea of satan. While we tend to think of physical reality as being concrete and unchanging, the truth is that physical reality represents completely different things to every single being based on their own individual way of seeing the world.

But why don’t we experience the world in the same way, even if we grew up in the same town as other people, or even the same household?

We all have different experiences in the same world.

Sometimes, you don't find out how difficult an experience was until you're out of it… until you’re witnessing the opposite of it.

This is my story.

* * *

So many people didn't know what I was going through one day ages ago when I said I wished my dad was dead.

Now, looking back on that time, I can see how absolutely far of a cry I was from okay. I had scars on my wrist. Anxiety every day. And the worst part was that I could have avoided it completely, and I didn’t. Learned helplessness.

My dad has been persistently physically and verbally abusive to me ever since I was 16. Sometimes the abuse would range from simple belittling (telling me I'm pathetic, stupid, calling me names, or cussing) to extreme reactions (yelling at me, hitting me, etc).

He would often isolate me when he was planning on targeting me for abuse, and then gaslight me later when I would talk about what happened by denying what happened and painting me to be crazy to other people.

It eventually started to slip out into view, and my family started to see the effects it was having on me. I became prone to dissociating and was diagnosed with ADD. My dad would then sweep in to become a rescuer of sorts, trying to get me to stay quiet about what I went through, usually in the form of bribes, or offering counseling. He went to church every weekend and made it very clear that nobody would believe me if I spoke up about the abuse. Most didn't, and I learned to stay quiet.

Finally, when I was 17, I found out that he was cheating on my mom by finding a small prepaid phone in a phone that was left out in the open. One contact was his mom, and the other an unknown number. I called the other number and a female voice answered, saying my dad's name in a nauseatingly flirty tone. Throughout the course of the year I kept the secret, sharing it with some close friends. Eventually my mom found out because I had written it down for a creative writing assignment where we were instructed to write down a secret we had.

I think many people would be surprised to think that I was relieved when my parents got divorced... but before you criticize me for feeling that way, you need to realize the space I was in; I was being abused covertly. Many people actively ignored me l when I spoke about the abuse, because my father was an upstanding and active member of our christian church. For many, the cognitive dissionance was too much to take and denial was simply more comfortable. From the outside perspective everything looked fine in our family, even though it was quite the opposite of what I was experiencing...

At 18, I decided to go to college far away. I was running from my past, and thus, I was running from my present. I made horrible decisions, got in trouble with the law, and self sabotaged the entire year, because at least by messing up my life I could witness that I had at least some ability to influence where my life went. The way I put it now makes it sound like the times there were all bad, that everything was intentional, and it really wasn't. I had a lot of fun out there. I still think back to those days with a bit of wistfulness... something about being in the same boat as a bunch of people your age still makes me nostalgic.

After returning home from college, the abuse got worse (to my surprise). There was a particularly bad fight where he gave me bruises on my arm... I remember taking pictures of it on my phone before it got stolen, and with it, the only proof I had that it ever happened.

Nothing was guaranteed. Every day, I wouldn't know if he would choose to violate me or if I would be let off easy with neglect or the rare kindness. It was a difficult existence.

I was struggling with schoolwork at community college. I had developed a taste for drugs and alcohol as a way to numb myself… After discovering the previous year that amphetamines helped me feel normal, I was prescribed amphetamines under the guise of ADD and became what I now refer to as "legally addicted”.

For about 6 months I would make a habit of going out partying on the weekends when he was around... escaping was always a lot of fun. For a short while, I wouldn’t have to worry. But eventually, it all came to a crashing halt.

One day I was at work, when everything changed. I was at the register at my fast food job when suddenly, a head rush washed over me. In a second, everything was different. I seemed to be seeing through a fog. My hands were trembling uncontrollably, and there was this intense feeling of doom. I managed to get out that I was not feeling okay and proceeded to go to the back and pace back and forth (what I later learned was stereotypical seizure behavior), thinking that I was crazy, till it subsided about 10 minutes later.

Hoping it was just coincidence, I tried my medication again a few days later, and the same thing happened. The second time I had realized I was experiencing a seizure and (stupidly) decided to work through it anyways.

My life was at stake, and it became clear to me that I had to leave this addiction-induced lifestyle behind. I was terrified. I knew that if I stopped doing amphetamines I would not be able to keep up with this lifestyle I wasn't cut out for... beyond that, I would have no choice but to stop running.

I stopped all drugs and began a ketogenic diet. The seizures happened less and less often, until they stopped completely. This piqued my interest, and soon my passion for studying nutrition, the human body, and how to heal it took place. With it, I began my emotional healing as well.

I learned that it was best if I stopped interacting with my dad, as he had continued to abuse me even if there were weeks of relative peace in between. I actually stopped interacting with almost everyone at that time. I lost a lot of friends when I stopped doing drugs, but many more just slowly faded away. I think a lot of them thought I was judgemental when I stopped using; though it wasn't like that to me. Deep down, I realized that I couldn’t truly be free if I needed substances to feel normal.

Everyone else's life seemed to be producing fruit, but I was withering. It isolated me. It became hard to relate to people who seemed to have everything I wanted... a stable home life, a supportive system of friends, a clear sense of direction in life.

I also found myself increasingly drawn to spirituality. My spiritual practice became a very important part of my life. At times, it was all I had.

Meanwhile, all my energy went into finding my own way to healing.

I went through all sorts of health problems as I began revisiting my dark past. At first, I was afraid I didn’t have what it took to heal; but with time I began to see that I was not only capable of finding the cause (both physical and emotional) of every symptom, but I was good at it. It became a sort of game for me, to find out how to cure whatever ailment I was having.

From the colon to the liver, to the brain and heart, I studied the impact nutrition had on how I was feeling, my only goal being to feel better than before. It not only worked, but I began feeling better than I had ever felt in my whole life... Meanwhile, my spiritual practice helped me make sense of my own suffering.

There came a point where I found I was stuck. I had began to stop tolerating gluten, but even after cutting it out I found myself experiencing a myriad of odd symptoms; symptoms of having sores that weren't healing, and extreme tiredness but was unable to sleep, and of extremely itchy skin bumps that looked like acne. I felt intuitively that they were all connected somehow, but I was not finding the cause as quickly as I had with the other illnesses.

 I searched long and hard for the cause, keeping track of my symptoms, all the while I was becoming sicker and sicker. To me it made no sense that I was as sick as I was… I was eating healthier than ever before, but for some odd reason, I felt worse. One day, it clicked. I hypothesized the cause was GMO foods, and cut them out of my diet completely.

Within a week my symptoms stopped completely. About a month later my skin was completely healed... the nightmare of the past 6 months was over, but I was left with the knowledge of the reality of two very crucial ecological issues: genetic experimentation, and geoengineering.

Beyond that, the hell… and the isolation, of what I had barely survived, gave rise to a deep sense of alienation coupled with a deep gratitude that has stuck with me ever since. I think that tends to happen when you live through hell; nothing that ever happens after surviving ever compares to the original trauma, and it gives rise to a sort of deep joy… A light shines within you knowing that it will never be as bad as it was before.

Realizing I needed to cut ties with my father and actually doing it were two completely different things, though. I never realized until trying to go no contact, how taboo it is to not speak to another family member. I never realized how there can be pressure even from within your family to keep putting yourself in situations where you’re physically in the presence of your abuser. But my body increasingly let me know how much stress it was causing me, in the form of a skin rash on the left side of my face.

I was increasingly realizing that being around my father was preventing me from truly letting go, but I still didn’t have the money to move out on my own. When my boyfriend Miles invited me to stay out with him in Indiana, I finally took a step out into the unknown, so we could finally be close together and I could take perhaps the biggest risk I’d taken yet in my adult life.

While it was a bit of a disaster finally getting out there in my bungeed up car, it also pushed me to grow. There was a lot of friendships that formed, and also a lot of enemies. Dealing with bullies at my job and at the house I was living at really dragged me down in a lot of ways; it felt like my life was just going to keep being a series of ongoing traumatic events that I was going to have to perpetually push myself to overcome through spiritual practice.

At the time I didn't understand why these people were bullying me. I thought something was wrong with me; even though I didn't do anything to them. I truly just wanted to coexist without being hurt.

The bullying had a huge impact on me, and I began to slip into old habits... When I went back to Colorado for the summer, I hit my lowest point. One day I was sharing what I knew about how messed up GMO foods really are with my dad and brother. My dad of course saw a weak spot and took it, jeering that I was making up the whole thing about the bizarre health problems I have due to my GMO sensitivity. Naturally, I got upset and began crying. Like I hinted at before, I had been through hell when I was sick as a result of my GMO sensitivity.

My dad began doing the thing he usually does, but I was so blind at the time I didn't realize it so I could escape in time. He made everyone leave the house, isolating me. He then began to verbally abuse me again, saying I was pathetic, and worthless. I began to get worse, unable to cope with the bullying. I screamed and started to hurt myself again, and again, and again… until a sort of eerie calm emerged. I stared at the blur of my father, who was supposed to love me, ahead; the tears froze in my eyes. "If I'm so pathetic, maybe I should kill myself," I murmured.

My dad looked straight at me and said if I killed myself, it would be the first thing I ever accomplished.

The rest of the night is a blur. I fucked up my wrist with scars. I remember calling my boyfriend, and he talked me down slowly. it's one thing to think someone thinks something about you... but it's another thing to actually hear it.

I screamed at him. Why would anyone ever say that to anyone? Why would anyone encourage someone to kill themselves? How could anyone do that and act even remotely normal in their waking life? How fucked up do you have to be? All of these were so hard to see past in the heat of the moment. Aren’t fathers supposed to be loving?

To make things worse, a few days later, my bully back in Indiana sent me a message first thing in the morning cussing me out and calling me names. To this day, I still don’t know why he felt the need to do that. I asked him why he can't just leave me alone, I'm not doing well, and he responded with cruel names. I decided shortly after that it would be healthiest to block his number instead of letting myself be pummeled any more by bullies.

I've been suppressing so much anger and sadness. So much of it. I've spent so much time hating myself because I thought I deserved to be treated that way... I thought I was selfish, any time I wanted to do anything at all for myself. Even when I was having health problems, it was hard for me to get past the idea that I deserved to die.

Back in Indiana, I was able to be still; the bully roommate moved away and I was doing much better being in a space of total acceptance. In a space of quiet, it became easier to recognize my own worth. I was still isolated, and not quite sure how to break past the solitude that I had built around myself, a chain link fence. But I was peaceful, and was learning more and more each day about the root cause of suffering, of anxiety, of self-hate through thinking about such things…

Come Christmas, I felt pressured to return because of my family… Even though I felt like a nervous wreck even thinking about returning, I decided to just go ahead anyways. All the hatred, anxiety, and stress came back to me. It was like I had never healed at all. 

Take about 3 weeks apart, these photos show how being in the prescence of an abuser can manifest as physical wounds. The first was taken after Christmas break, and the second is taken after being away from my abuser for a few weeks, thus allowing for healing to take place

It’s weird, but I’ve come to realize that a lot of emotional imbalances quickly manifest physically on me. I had that gash develop on the left side on my face because I let the fact that I was going to be around my abuser again get to me. Looking back, I’m still in denial in a lot of ways. I just want to be normal. There’s so much pressure to be normal. Believe me, I’ve tried (by eating foods I’m allergic to, only to experience a reaction, to forcing myself to work minimum wage jobs that arent cut for my strengths, or trying to build high emotional walls to keep my heart safe) But it’s not possible for me to do what normal people do after being through what I’ve been through.

It felt weird… Being around him, my abuser. I just went right back to old habits. He acted like his rescuer personality the entire break, which in some ways made things worse, because it just reinforces this idea that I’m crazy for hurting so badly as a result of his actions.

Beneath the sadness, I found anger. Sadness was a cover emotion for the raw anger I had towards him. I hated him for fucking me up emotionally. I hated him for fucking up other people emotionally along with me. For never showing a sign of remorse, never asking for forgiveness, never apologizing. For seeming to enjoy witnessing how much he could hurt another person at times, I hated him. I hated his hypocrisy more than anything else.

One day I just let it slip, by saying that I wish he was dead on facebook. Ironically, I ended up being treated like how my dad treated me by a lot of other people, pacified like I'm a mental patient. But was I really all that crazy for feeling that way?

Did others ever wonder why I felt that way? Did they ever question if I felt that way for a reason? Is it always mentally unhealthy to feel that way, or are there some cases where it’s healthier to be angry than to be completely forgiving, completely allowing, remaining in a space of complete positive focus?

I’m sure you can understand my answer. I don't think it's a sign of mental un-health to want THE MOST abusive person you've ever met to die at some point in your recovery from abuse. Anger is one step in the grieving process. Grieving an abusive relationship, you grieve the death of what was meant to be loving and beautiful. It's incredibly painful and the ‘should’s’ make it more painful.

I would not be the same person I am today without the abuse. Perhaps I would live in the way that I have for most of my younger life, where I lived in a way that was more cautious. Maybe I wouldn’t have put so much focus on spiritual growth and personal development if I never questioned the reason I was put on this planet to begin with.

 Most days I’m honestly afraid of the implications that come with thinking that the only reason I am the way I am is because I’ve had a horrifying past. I don’t want to think that the only way people become purified is by going straight through fire and brimstone.  I think we can start creating a better world by being mindful that everyone thinks what they think for a reason and seeking to understand those reasons above anything else.

Regardless, I have consistently felt called towards a broader audience as a result of my experiences. Because of my suffering, I am able to understand others who are suffering. Because I am finding a way out of my own suffering, I may be able to help others who are struggling to see past their current circumstances.

I am not sure where this calling will lead me, but I ask for the patience and prayers from friends, known or unknown, as I continue to recover. Beyond that, I ask for understanding. I ask to be seen and accepted for who I am, because I seek to see and accept other people for who they are (yes, even my abusers, but that’s another post entirely).

It is not going to be like this forever, I think, as I blast music in my small green car, leaving in my absence dirt suspended in remnant sound waves. There’s no way in hell my life is going to begin as an ongoing cry for help that never gets answered before it ends.

* * *

Shielding my eyes from the sun, I approach a building. I hear the small hum of people being friendly inside. My hand quivers a bit as I reach for the handle. Taking a deep breath, I fight the fear and at once find myself in a room.

 Christmas lights are strung decoratively throughout the small clearing…. Lining the walls, there are hundreds of jars, pots, and pans. The floor is a dark grey color that has been lightened by dirt; Tapestries on the walls paint the room with beautiful patterns.

All around me people are talking and smiling… The warming smell of garlic and paprika fills the air as people continue to talk quietly amongst themselves.

It takes everything I can to not cry at the scene… Taking it all in, I allow the tears to fill my eyes, but not spill over. I manage to stutter that I’m sorry I’m late, and people direct me to get a plate and utensils; I am welcome to eat my fill.

The room was familiar. I had seen it in a dream before. I remember the layout and the coloring; the grey walls and dark floor and wooden counters that lined the back, where the sink was. I remembered the people. But never in my life did I think the place I had travelled to in my dream was actually real. Never in my life had I ever physically been there.

But this feeling I have tells me loud and clear: Welcome home. You have arrived at last.

This changes everything.

Continued in post, In The Place Of My Dreams