Brave Enough To Be Bliss

beauty too...I'm beginning to see her through all the eyes of those who have loved me, including you. You may not have loved me the way I wanted you to at the time, but you loved me the only way you could and that was enough. It was still more love than I had allowed any other man to give me, so again, that was a gift. The way we used to forgive each other, we still do, and that is a gift as well. So anyway, I always told you that your friendship meant more to me than anything else, so I just want you to know that even in the midst of the hardest year of my life for all kinds of reasons, you being absent from it was not something I resent because even that contributed to growth that I may not have experienced if you had been more present. So, if at some point you want to be friends again, we could start fresh as vulnerable, open, and honest friends who ask questions and don't make assumptions. If you do, then you know how to reach me, and I would be happy to hear from you. Today's sermon was about Mr. Rogers, the movie. When I saw the movie, I remembered thinking that I needed to ask you to watch it. I don't know if I did or not, but I'm thinking I didn't end up doing so. I was worried about what you would think, what you would take away from my suggestion to watch it. Again, though, hearing about the movie and seeing some clips, I felt compelled to tell you about it and suggest you watch it. It's been over a year since I watched it, so I don't even remember specifically why I thought it would be a good one for you to watch...but again, this morning I had a clear feeling that I needed to mention it to you. Everything I have learned from Ginger and then just had emphasized through EMDR is exactly what Mr. Rogers said in the movie, and I suspect in real life, "Everything mentionable is manageable." It's such a novel concept and yet so simple. I have learned that while I thought if I said the horrible things out loud that I felt, it would be worse than keeping them inside. What I have learned is that it is the opposite. Once we verbalize our feelings, they aren't so scary anymore and they don't have to control our lives. Once the scary thoughts are outside our minds/bodies, then we have the freedom to make different choices for ourselves. Whoever hurt us years ago, they aren't hurting us anymore. We are choosing to hurt ourselves, and while understandable, it just doesn't have to be that way. I was doing some research for something I am going to write, potentially a book but some sort of outreach anyway, and ran across this research article. There are so many people hurting in this world and I just keep uncovering more and more that leads me to believe that while of course there can be genetics involved, because of the sheer number of people who keep turning up in my life who haven't ever told of traumatic situations of their past, I just feel there's more to the story and that we don't even have any true idea of the magnitude of traumatic events on people. The brain is so very powerful that my thought is that people are born innocent and with predispositions for things, but it is what happens in their young lives that sets the tone for how much that predisposition actually affects their lives. This research seems to go along with that sort of a theory from what I can understand anyway.

Increased risk of suicide, mental health conditions linked to sexual assault victimization

At least in sexual abuse/assault, we don't have any real sense of the impact because most people don't tell and for that reason, their lives get so much more messed up than they need to be. Anyway, the process of EMDR was life changing for me and I realize it may not be for everyone and that because of what I had done with Ginger for almost three years, my brain was open to it, so it was for me. It was the final piece of my puzzle to be able to move forward in my life instead of being stuck with my 17-year-old traumatized brain that is terrified of everyone and everything and just trying to protect herself. Now when I visualize that girl standing naked in the shower sobbing, instead of seeing her as ruined and responsible and unlovable, all I want to do is go and hold her. I want to tell her to tell me all about it, every last detail so she doesn't have to keep that horrible pain inside her for the next 35 years and let it affect every relationship she has with

everyone in her life. I want to hold her and let her cry and cry and cry until she doesn't have to keep those tears locked inside her until she doesn't want to do anything else except die in order to end the pain. I want to tell her that what happened to her is just that, what happened "to" her. I want to tell her that I saw what happened to her and as I saw it, it wasn't her that was disgusting, it was him. I want to tell her that when he stood there in the doorway laughing at her proud of himself for stealing her virginity, he was the one who would have something to settle with God, not her. I want to tell her that when she thinks she is responsible because she didn't scream, he had his hand over her mouth and when she struggled, he would bear down even harder on her, and she felt like she couldn't breathe at all. I want to tell her that at that point she froze, her brain pretended it was happening to someone else because it was just too much for her to bear and that's ok, because she survived. She was smart enough to do whatever it took to make it through that horrifying time, but that now that she's told someone, she doesn't have to bear it anymore. She can take her power back. She can have her life; she can have a life worth living. She isn't what happened to her, she is who she makes of

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