Bad Days and taking the Power Back

We all have our bad days.  We have days when nothing seems to be going right, we have days where we are just depressed, and then sometimes we have a great start to our day and something happens and it ruins our mood.

Today, was one of the those days, a day I've been looking forward to and super excited about, had a great morning, and then someone said something and it got in my head and ruined that good mood I had.  Since then I allowed myself a breakdown and have been working on building up and getting my power back.

Let me share with you the whole story:

I jumped out of bed this morning, I've been busy all month long but I was looking forward to today!  My oldest went off to school while my little one and I got loaded up and went to the library, we met an author and had some really good conversations.
On my way home, I stopped to get gas and was approached by someone I had recently met while with my husband.  He came up to me with a wave and asked me what my first name was again. So I told him my first name, maybe people don't remember it or have a hard time processing that that's a real name.  Anyway he goes on and says "I thought I knew you from somewhere else did you grow up in Greentown?"
Close enough, my high school covered a large area so yeah I knew people from there even tho I lived about 40 minutes or so from there.  "Hawley area." I responded
"Oh your dad is Big Rick then?"
As you know from my post Names that his name is Rick so I responded with, "Yeah, I guess."
"He's a big guy." he goes on to puff out his arms to show large.
"I don't really know, he went to jail and I don't know him." I said.  I figured that was the easiest way out of this conversation I didn't want to be in any longer.  I don't know why I didn't just say "He's a convicted child molester so since he abused me I don't know him and don't want to associate with anyone who does.  Maybe it's because I was uncomfortable, I didn't know this person, and for all I know he could be thinking of someone else.
"Oh well my wife was so-and-so, You had a sister right?"
"I'm sorry I don't know, and I don't think so, but I gotta get going."

I drove off shaken.  It was such a odd conversation and make me feel so weird.  I continued on in a foggy mind of my own and then went home where I made lunch and finally confronted my issues and cried.  Now I'm writing my issues out...

I hate that I let that conversion affect me.  I hate that thinking about my abuse and abuser still sends fear, and a feeling of powerlessness over me.  What bothered me the most, I realized is that Rick is out there and doesn't have to be labeled, people can meet him and not know what is he or what he's done, that for all I know hell I could have a sister.  I sure as hell hope that's not the case, and I doubt it is, but that thought scares me.

I was mad that someone could talk about Rick (my abuser) like he was a normal person.  I feel that way a lot.  I've had people mention Jen and Jim to me before.  These people don't really know me and I always feel awkward.   I've even once had someone ask me how they were.
 I think that this feeling of anger and awkwardness at the mention of our abusers and hearing people talk about them as people is something that is common to us survivors.  We don't view them as people anymore.  Myself I wish they were gone, or that people saw them through my eyes.  I have mentioned before that I wish all pedophiles and rapist had to wear a label so they were dehumanized.  This might seem wrong, but in our shoes these people have failed at being a person.  They have failed those who had laid trust in their hands, they have failed at treating others as people.  We had become objects to them, objects they used and abused.  They made us feel like we were less than others therefore we (I) want them to feel that way and be viewed as such.  The problem with this is that as awful as their actions are/were they are still people, they are someone's brother (or sister- I think we forget that women can be abusers) they are were someone's friend, spouse, member of the church, they were/are someone who was/is known in the community, they are/were someone's son/daughter.

To show this I will use my own story, one that was told to me....
My Uncle and I had a couple heart to heat moments when he lived across the street from me when I lived with Jen and Jim.  I loved him, for all his flaws and troubles he had, I loved him.  I loved him because he didn't hold back from me when we were hanging out, he talked to me not as a child to be sheltered but as a person.  He is the one that told me when Rick was back around our farm, and told me that that was why sometimes Jen would do the chores for me.  He had my respect for having told me this info that I wasn't to know.  He made me aware of a situation, I kept my eyes open, I had trouble sleeping at night, but I knew.  Anyway back to his story...
He told me of the night he learned about what had happened to me.  "Rick told me that you had been touched and there was an investigation.  I grabbed my gun and said 'Let's go kill this guy' and started to head out for the truck, when Rick stopped him and said "That guy is me."  Rick was his brother.  He said he and thought about shooting him, even started to raise the gun.  But he couldn't.  He told me it messed with his head.  He dropped out (or failed) college and got even heaver into drugs then he had been. 

Rick had been a brother, a son, a business partner, and known in the community.  I've shared before how Jen blamed and viewed me as the person who's fault it was that her son went to jail.

Anyway back to my story today....With all these thoughts in my mind I was a bit of a mess.  Then I thought to a workshop I'd recently went to that was Taking Back Your Power, this workshop was not at all dealing with sexual abuse or anything of the sort.  It was breathing and taking back your classroom of those students who have negative behavior and changing to positive.  During this workshop the instructor told us how our past experiences reflect onto words others say so we make those words have different meanings than they have.  His theory is "No one can make you upset; you choice to be upset."  I did not like this theory.  As much as I didn't like this theory I kept thinking about it today... I let this ONE thing effect my whole day.  I was in a GREAT mood before, then from that one conversation my mind went to the negative and settled there.  I LET my mood and day be altered.  So I started to re think the conversation, that guy I don't know, probably doesn't know me.  Rick is a common name, he could have been thinking of someone totally different.  Because of my bad experience I related my experience to the words he was saying and they very well could have had not a damn thing to do with me.  Also I had just stepped back into victim, I felt powerless.  I am not powerless, I am in charge of my life, and I take my power back every time I speak out against abuse, each time I tell someone you are not alone, and I take a hell of a lot of power back when I speak and share my story.  They can't keep you down when you don't keep quiet.  I could have switched that whole conversation around by saying "Richard Davis?  He is a convicted child molester, and of no relation to me, (say that because I don't want to be related, we can't chose biology but we can chose who we claim) and if you are friends with him you can get the hell away from me because someone who takes advantage of children is no longer a person in my eyes."  Had I approached the question from that direction it would have cleared up exactly who he was talking about and given me all the power making known what Rick did and the type of "person" he is.

So I started to think about that...then from the same instructor I did some breathing and decided that nothing about me changed today...I was doing great, so now I needed to work through this and move on.  I thought it over, I could have said "no" when I was asked about "my dad" because I don't have one, Rick is dead to me, while he isn't in reality I have moved on and I have a good life. 

So for anyone who is having a bad day allow yourself to have a break down, we all need to yell, vent, and cry at times.  We also need to laugh, smile, and enjoy life.  So we need to go from break down to moving forward...
1. acknowledge how you are feeling, and why
2. let it out (yell, cry, vent, write, whatever it is that is going to get it all out of you)
3. breath (I will post some links at the bottom if you're interested in focused breathing)
4. acknowledge the positive in your life (make a list if you want)
5. go do something that will make you feel more like you and start feeling better
6. one foot in front of the other, from doing that one thing in step 5, do another or something that is on your to-do list

I wish you all healing.

Some links you might find of interest:
The instructor that I mentioned above, he did 2 amazing workshops which I learned a ton from, about breathing, movement, and he has a Breaking the Bullying Circle which is important, for more info about him and his programs visit: www.ronspeak.com

Take deep belly breathing breaths with this video to help calm and center yourself

Journal page to help you recognize the good stuff

Self Harm - do this instead

I saw this post on facebook and had to share!  I use to burn myself, cut sometimes but never deep, I was numb to life and the pain of it was a release for me a release of anger and hurt.  I really hope this helps someone.  Keep your head up, Stay Strong, it takes time but life will get better, and please seek help if you need it!!

For your bad days

Everyone has bad days...those days when you're mind is in a dark place, when you can't push the thoughts away, when you feel like you're falling apart and the pieces will leave scares for all to notice.
I can't fix this, no one can take the memories away, but I saw this on nomoresexualassault Instagram and I hope that it helps.

On those bad days, when you feel lost and alone, pull this up and know that you are not alone.  There are so many others out there that know how you feel that have been in your shoes, and there are a lot out there suffering in silence.
Let's break that silence.  Share this image with everyone so that they know that they are not alone.

Things will get better.  Life does get better.  There is GOOD in this world.

Please seek help if you need it!!

And if you're sharing your story, and posting quotes and images like this one...THANK YOU!  Thank you so much for all that you're doing to help victims and survivors and raising awareness.  You are truly a ray of sunlight with the word hope in it, you brighten the dark places, ease some of the pain.  You are inspiring, and strong, and helping more than we could tell you.

Could have beens and Should have dones...

When life has you in a hard spot I always find myself looking back on all my life and wondering what could have been if I had made different choices.  I notice things that I should have done in order to have been better off (maybe) 
It's an easy thing to do...that's why they say hind sight is 20/20

Well this past year for my family and I has been one of those hard years, in which both my husband and I spend a lot of time looking back on all the life choices we've made and wondering what could have been if we went a different path and what different things we should have done in order to not be in the hard spot we were in.

At the end of summer 2012 I found myself pregnant...after having just lost one house because we weren't making enough money to pay rent.  We found a place to live so we weren't homeless but the pregnancy came at a bad time, we had just moved into our new place and were only barely making bills with both my husband and I working...I had morning sickness so had to quit... Really it's not the best to work in a kitchen and be running to the bathroom to throw up often.  We were very excited about having the baby but scared shitless pretty much too.  The winter proved to be a hard one... with only my husband's income, no raise and somehow less money than the years before we didn't have enough to cover all our bills and none for food.  My family helped us with food often buying us groceries and having us over for dinner.  We were very grateful.  We kept wondering what we were going to do.  We couldn't keep going on like this not with a baby coming and the expenses of diapers and everything. 

As you can imagine we looked back at everything we had gone through in our last 6 years together...

We went over every mistake we made that led us to being so poor...
My semester at college...then my photography schooling.  Thanks for that! I racked up a lot of debt...but it's hard to regret that.  I wanted to be a Spanish Teacher and then I learned a lot about photography and I still don't think I have enough schooling and would love to go back.
That leads me to wonder where life would have gone had I stayed in college the first time...
What if we had waited the 4 years to get married?  How stupid was it of us to have bought that brand new truck that we couldn't make the outrageous payments on right after our wedding??  Was it good or bad that we moved north as soon as work slowed down in the south?  And we know that moving back to NC while we thought we had everything planned out so well and things were looking up for us, was a mistake.

I could keep going...but why waste our time.

I believe there's good that came from all of our choices even if looking back we see how things might have gone better had we made other choices

Buying that truck that really put us in debt and trashed our credit even more than my schooling...that taught us a lesson...NEVER BUY WHAT YOU CAN'T AFFORD!!  Since then we've stuck to used cars for a good price that we've had to pay for in cash.

If we waited until I was 21 to get married, who knows what that would have or wouldn't have changed?  It doesn't really matter.  I'll have been married to my wonderful husband 6years this year, and we've had our share of ups and downs...but we've done it all together and I wouldn't want it any other way.

After all that felling sorry for ourselves, looking back on the could have beens (I could have been a teacher already) and should have dones, we realized that everything we went through we had done for a reason...each thing taught us a lesson, and instead of looking back and looking at where we were stuck we had to start looking ahead and thinking of a way to get to where we wanted to be.

Where we wanted to be was easy...we wanted a good life for our girls and to be able to make our bills and have more than enough food on the table and to enjoy life.  Sound easy enough.
How to get there is another story but we all do what we need to in order to reach our goals and keep working hard on getting there and most IMPORTANTLY:
 Never give up on your dreams!!!

 (Image is taken from Instagram follow Factsofhealth for more)

I know it's hard.  I've beaten myself up a lot over the years due to looking back on my past and seeing the mistakes I've made...I've gotten discouraged trying to figure out how to get to the places I want to be while looking at where I am. 

I've often wondered about way back in my past, what would have happened if I grew up with my mom?  What would have happened if I admitted and told someone what my grandfather was doing so much earlier? 
But none of that really matters right now...it's important that instead of looking back on your mistakes and dwelling too much in your past pain that we look for the good times and remember them and, look forward to tomorrow and make plans on how to have a better tomorrow while never forgetting to make the best of right now!

Yes, I said all that after telling you how much time I have wasted looking back but I know it's important to stop doing that. 

 

I'll leave you (and me) with this...

When I look back...

I saw this on a facebook post and had to share it with you.  I know from personal experience when you're living in an abusive house that if feels like things will never get better and that the future is so far away, but know that one day you will be out and living better and will look back and this will be you.

Please if you are in an abusive home or need help seek it, it's out there, talk to your guidance councler in school, a close friend, or Victims' Intervention Program or any other service that there is in your area.

This quote means so much to mean because I can now do it.  I've lived my hell being abused my my biological father, and grandparents on that side.  I managed to move out and go out with my life, and even my hard days now are nothing compared to my past.  I may not be exactly where I want to be in life but I know that I'm safe and that no one will touch me in a way I don't want to be touched today, or tomorrow, or any other day, at least not in my home.  When I was in school I never thought I'd see that day.  I was terrified about telling someone about my abuse and being believed, and to be honest it was a very hard thing to do.  I finally did get out of that home, and while part of me was broken and damaged the part that has flash backs and gets depressed every once in a while over the thoughts of the past, I have become stronger and managed to rise up and say this is my story and this is what happened.  I have found people who don't drag you down and who love and support you and raise you up, for me those people are my loving husband (never thought I'd have one of them), my family who took me in after I told them what happened and made me feel safe and took care of me, my friends who didn't turn their backs on me and told me that everything would be OK, my counclers who listened to me and helped me in every way they could, and all the people who are just there not saying anything but always there as a rock for me.

I will tell you that my life right now isn't a fairy tale happily ever after, but in some ways it is to me.  Right now I'm not making the amount of money my family needs, we are renting and we wish that we owned a home, let's just say that there's a lot that we could change to the better still but I still feel like Cinderella after she puts on the shoe and goes on to live her happily ever after with Prince Charming.  I get to smile every day that I overcame the my past and I know that I will get to go on and keep bettering my life and think everyday that at least I'm not going through what I had gone through all through my school years.  I can't believe how great my life is sometimes compared to how shitty it had once been. 

I really hope that you all read this quote in the image and think the same thing that you can smile at how far you've come and how you've overcome the people in your past who have tried to bring you down.

You can never completely forget

Anyone who's been abused will never forget what happened to them.  They try but it will always be a permanent stamp on their memory.  Trust me I know this.

I thought that as you got older and everything wasn't so fresh in your mind the memories would fade; but they don't.  I have blank spots in my memory but the sad thing is some of what happened to me is burned into my mind and I can still remember everything happening clearly, sometime I try to change the outcome but it's like watching a movie in your mind and nothing changes :(  You can't change the past; I know that.  I know that thinking about the past doesn't help me to move forward, but there will always be something that triggers a bad memory.  Sometimes it's something that happens in a movie, on TV, or the news, sometimes it's a simple question that's asked, sometimes it's something that you learned and then you wonder if things would have been different had you known then.

I don't know how to handle these triggers.  They still affect me.  For as strong as some people tell me I am, when a flash back is triggered I don't feel strong at all; instead I'm left feeling weak, along, vulnerable, and ashamed.  Then for a while after I'm depressed.

I have a lot of experience in overcoming that depression.  It's hard.  Sometimes it takes time to overcome, but it's so important to get your happiness, strength, and confidence back.  Even more importantly you need to know that it's not your fault.

If you have a support system use them!  If you don't, then that makes it really hard and I'm sorry about that, you'll have to find a way to overcome that depression on your own, and that makes you really strong!

My tips on overcoming that depression

**go outside, get fresh air, and lots of sunshine**

-go hiking, horse back riding, or whatever outdoor activity you enjoy

-or just sit outside and read, paint your nails, or watch the clouds

**take vitamins**

-Vitamin D "the sunshine vitamin" 

Most people don't have enough vitamin D in their diet (especially us northern states) so this is a must!

-Multivitamin

Your mood will go up when you feel better.

-Probiotic

Yes, Probiotics are for healthy digestion, and they help boost your immune system!  Even better (I just learned over the weekend from Chiropractor of the year(both in the US and internationally) Carol Ann Malizia) That probiotics help not only your body, but also the mind and mood of a person!  That was awesome to me, but I wanted proof of that so I searched and found Probiotics could be good for your mood.

-Stress Relief Complex

We all know that when you're depressed that your stress levels go way up (at least they do for me) lower them naturally.

~you will notice that all the supplements I listed come from Shaklee, that's because of the science, quality, and PROVEN effectiveness of all their products.  Shaklee is the number one natural nutrition company in the US (Google it if you want to) and is the ONLY company I trust with my health and the health and safety of my family!~

**it's not always sunny and nice outside**

-do one of your indoor hobbies

-write

-vent to someone who understands

-call a hotline if you have no one to talk to

-dive into your work

I'll leave you with these images I've shared on facebook:

I'm a horse person.

I think horses are the best therapy a person can buy.  They really are strong, beautiful, powerful, free animals, and when we're around them the give some of that to us.  They also listen without passing any judgment.

When you're not a athletic runner like me they give you the strongest legs so that you can run and make you feel like you're flying and will help you in letting go of all your worries.