Thoughts on Motherhood

Being a parent is a tough job. Everyone knows it! Some fail pretty horribly at it. Some get a passing grade.

I grew up in a family where my parent's pretty much failed. There are other posts on this blog and over at A Victim No More that share a bit of their failure if you're interested, but that's not why I'm writing today. 

I had a revelation the other morning, after I had dropped my daughter off at school. I got to thinking about being a parent. Rhapsody is a wonderful three year old little girl who is full of spunk, and sass, and joy, and hard-headedness. Yes. I know. She gets it from me, and I love it! Given her three short years of life, you would think that I would, as a parent, feel like I had done nothing wrong - so far - to "mess her up" in adulthood. Wrong. As I was driving to the store, all I could think about was whether or not I had used too harsh of a word with her, whether I had upset her irreparably, whether I had failed her as a mom. We like to tease Rhaps (my husband and I) and we hope to raise a resilient and strong child; but, as an abuse survivor, I sometimes worry that my own lack of a normal childhood has left me completely incapable of raising my child lovingly...  I have had to apologize to my beautiful three year old for being too mean to her. For losing my anger and shouting. For being a bad mom. And I love Rhapsody so much. So in my car, I began to fret, and worry, and feel sick about being a bad mom who was ruining her child. Then, it came to me, clear as day. The bible puts it so plainly. God needs broken people. He heals broken people. He uses broken people. I cannot possibly give Rhapsody everything she desires, all the love she needs, and thank goodness I can't. Because if I could, then she wouldn't need Jesus. 

The Psalms are full of the brokeness of men followed by the love of God. A few examples:

          Psalm 34:18 "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit"

          Psalm 51:17 "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you                will not despise." 

          Psalm 147:3 "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds."

That isn't saying that I am allowed to treat my child in a way that is abusive or mean, but simply that God gives me the Grace to fail. And then the even bigger responsibility of apologizing to my small, three year old child when I do fail. My mind came to these two scriptures as I was driving, 

          James 4:6 "He gives more grace. Therefore it says, 'God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.'" 

          James 5:16 "Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working." 

Sidenote: I LOVE the book of James. Give it a read if you haven't...

You see, I cannot possibly be a perfect parent. "There is no one righteous, no not one..." I am a human raising another human, and as I like to say: humans kind of suck. It is my responsibility as a parent to try and raise Rhapsody the best way I can. To follow what God has set before me. To teach her to see the world for all it can be. To lead her in love, and yes, to discipline her when needed. And when I fail when I get to angry, when I shout, when the mean mommy rears her ugly head, I have to pause, pray, and apologize. Rhapsody needs to see me fail. Needs to see how I handle issues. How I can be humble and still strong. How I rely on the grace and forgiveness of God to continue on day to day even when it is tough. How I can ask for forgiveness from those that I harm. 

Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." Now let's replace he with she, and it is perfect! 

I am a broken parent. And that is okay. It is in my brokenness that I find the need for Jesus. My child will also have to one day be broken to a place where she needs Jesus too. I don't have to be perfect. And neither does my child.     

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God!"

                                                                                        -  1 John 3:1

It's Been A While!

It has certainly been a long time since I powered up the blogger-sphere. Almost a full two years! For varying reasons, I just kind of took a break for a while; however, with the change of moving and the stress of a new area, new job, and new school (yikes!!) I'm feeling the drive to write again! During this move, I have come to realize I have some pretty crazy stories to share, and even more insight. So keep your eyes out for more from me on life, motherhood, work, and near death experiences (Ha! Got ya with that one! You'll have to wait for the blog post to find out what I'm talking about...)

Victim No More

I am not looking for pity.

Ever since I decided I needed to, was called to, was designed to write this book this has always been the line that stuck out to me. That would be the first line.

I am not looking for pity...

No one who has been abused is looking for pity. They may need something from you, but pity is not it. They need your love. Your understanding. Your compassion. And probably your shoulder. Your encouragement. Your belief. And your support. But pity? Pity is not what they want. Not at all what they need.

When I talk about my story, what happened to me, I get several responses. Responses range from anger to nonchalance. Yeah. Nonchalance. As in, "So what. We all have a story." So here I am, about to come out on a limb and share the moment that for some inexplicable reason I came forward. I am trusting this story in your hands. The reader's hands. Take from it what you will, but this is my story and I refuse to feel shame.

I have grown to fear the sharing of my story. When I first came forward and my parents were thrown in jail people were angry. Angry with me. My family hated me... Some of them still do. And I felt a backlash from the people closest to me when I tried to share what happened. I learned to hide the pain, all the while I had the knowledge that it was my future to share all of this with you... I was not given the childhood I had to simply hide it away.

There is a lot of back story here that I'm going to leave out in this post. At this point in my life, my mother "knew" what was going on. As in she had been told by me several times and had thought she had stopped it. Troy (my step father) was sick. It never stopped for more than a month before he figured out new ways to get to me. This is simply the story of the day I came forward, I will write later posts to share what had happened when I was younger, as well as, what happened in the months afterwards.

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It was my senior year. September. So much of that time is a blur to me. I learned at a young age to simply block away unpleasant memories. I did that here as well.

I had decided my junior year that I was going to the Air Force Academy. I was on track to get the heck out of Bryson City. Away from Troy. I wanted to go to the stars. As far away as I could climb. I wanted to become somebody. Anybody, but this weak, abused little girl. To get into the Academy I had to have paperwork filled out by my JROTC teachers, a favorite teacher, and my principle, Ms. Mathis.

I loved Ms. Mathis. I had known her since I moved to North Carolina. She had worked at the middle school I attended. She was one fantastic lady, and for some reason I always had a special connection with her.

It was Friday. Football day! I remember that. My mom had let me drive her car to school because I had Honor Guard practice afterwards, then I was supposed to pick her up from work. Early into the school day I went to see Ms. Mathis to get her to fill out my Academy paperwork. This was the moment that forever changed the path of my life.

Ms. Mathis asked me to wait in her office with her while she answered the questions. She would periodically ask me what I thought on the matter. Then, she got to the question, "Is there anything that could potentially hold this future cadet back from performing well at the Academy?"

She looked up and asked the simplest, hardest question. "What about our step-father, Sydney? Can you leave your siblings behind?"

She had thought there might be something going on. Troy wasn't only sexually abusive towards me, but physically abusive towards the rest of my family. We followed his word as if it was the direct word of God. You didn't dare question what he said. In public he was never very friendly; in fact, he scared most people. He had already held me back from some of my dreams. And he was rarely present for our school functions, recitals, sports games, or band performances. My interactions, and the way I talked about him had alerted Ms. Mathis to the fact that there might be more going on.

I looked at her and said, "Well, there's nothing going on now." Yeah. WRONG answer. That prompted the, "what was going on?" question. I broke down. I remember crying. I don't remember what I said. I know it was a lot. I know it was more than I ever wanted to say. Then I remember relief. Such sweet relief. It felt so good! Too bad it lasted a very short time. Then the fear came barreling in. I was so scared. I didn't want to go to the police. I didn't want to tell anyone else. In fact, I wanted to take everything back. I wanted Ms. Mathis to ignore every word I said. I begged her to not tell anyone. I told her I wouldn't go to the police. My family would hate me. I had no where to go. I cannot put into words the all encompassing dread that filled me.

Then she called in Officer Carolyn Posey, our school resource officer. I remember shaking. Wringing my hands. Twirling my hair. Trying to calm myself down. Ms. Mathis had me tell Carolyn everything. I recounted the story to her as I had Ms. Mathis. Carolyn urged me to go to the police with her. To come forward. I wanted to so badly. I remember thinking that I should. But still, this fear. I couldn't shake it. I clung to my past. I feared the unknown of the future. I knew what going home at the end of the day would be like. It would be the same as every other day. I knew what every day was like. This. This coming forward... No. That was different. It wasn't safe. I didn't know what would happen. I was so afraid. At that point they sent me back to class. They told me to tell my teachers I wasn't feeling well. Which was true. No one would question me as my face was all shades of red, my eyes ugly and blotchy. I dreaded what would happen next.

I think it was after lunchtime that I was called back to the office. Carolyn had a woman with her. An angel of a woman. This memory is shadowed. I don't remember the woman's face. Or even her name. But I do remember the stories she told me. Stories of other girls who came forward. People who had been hurt by their family as well. How they got help for those girls and even their mother's. I was so afraid my mom would get in trouble. They told me it depended on how she reacted, but that she could be proven innocent if she cooperated. It was when they said that my coming forward could save my brother and sister from pain that I began softening towards the idea. Who would protect them when I left for college? This was my biggest fear. I love my siblings. I was so afraid what would happen, I finally made the decision to go to the police.

I'm not sure how I got there. I think Carolyn drove me. Then she went to pick up my mom while I gave my statement to the Cherokee PD. I still remember the numbing affect of my conflicting emotions of joy and fear. I wanted so badly to share everything. To get Troy put away where he couldn't harm me or anyone else anymore... I told about the years of sexual abuse. Of being made to drink alcohol. Of being forced to walk around naked. Of the fear of what would happen if I ever told. It was all out. There was no taking it back anymore. I felt as if the whole world now knew my horrible secret.

What happened next will be forever seared into my brain. I struggle now to even write this. I feel it is necessary though. For you to know. Not only was coming forward freeing, and completely worth it, it was also the worst day of my life. I had never felt as bad about myself as I did that day.

My mom arrived at the police station. When she got there she was hysterical. Just as I feared change and the unknown, so did she. I heard her screaming in the hallway. Screaming that I was lying. That I was a little spoiled bitch. That I was making everything up. Ms. Mathis jumped up from the table we were sitting at and went running out the door to confront my mother. I was so thankful to have such a wonderful woman around to protect me, but it didn't stop the pain. Or the tears. Even now, my gut hurts with the pain of those memories. The hurt at having my mother not support me. I knew at that point that the next stage would not be easy. But I made the commitment to see it through. To continue on the path that I had started.

Over the next months, even year, there was a lot of pain. I experienced so many heartaches. Family that I loved, even my own Grandmother, turned their backs on me. Told everyone that I was a lying, scheming whore. My brother and sister went through hell during the transition as well. I felt like a wretched human being for putting my family through this all. I knew that in the end it would be worth it. The truth was worth the pain.

I say all of that because if you too are going through abuse right now I want you to know what it is like when you come forward. Your family may not support you. The people you love most you may say that you are lying. But you MUST stay your ground! You MUST come forward!! Troy was not only abusing me, he was abusing my whole family. He is a sick man who deserved to go away for much longer than he actually got. What if the person who is terrorizing you hurts another? You are strong enough, you are bold enough to step forward. To tell your story so that others may not suffer. For a long time I thought that I had made the worst decision of my life, but then the healing came. I was able to figure out what I really wanted to do with me life. Not just what I wanted to do to get as far away from evil as I could. I began creating stronger, better relationships with people who would truly support me. I began learning that the things I thought were "normal" were in fact very wrong. I learned what the true love of a Father was...

I didn't realize it until several months afterwards, but I was very close to killing myself. I had sat with the pill bottles next to me. Looked at them. Contemplated taking all of them. I had thought of stepping into the middle of traffic. I had even fantasized about simply running away, which carries many more problems than what I was already in... No matter what you think taking those pills will solve, or running out that door will do, it is never enough. The person who is committing or did commit those crimes (no matter how long ago) deserves to stand trial for their transgressions against humanity, against you.

Troy didn't get sent to prison for life. It wasn't the outcome I wanted. I had endured years of silence, abuse, and pain, for him to get a short sentence. But for the rest of his life he will have to wear a tracking anklet. He will be on the Sex Offender Registry. People will now know who he truly is.

To be honest, I don't know how to end this post. So I will say this, if you or someone you know is in trouble, please please help them come forward. Help yourself. Be selfish! Tell the world what is happening in secret. I want this to be secret no more. I don't want a single sex offender to ever feel they can abuse another person. They should fear the truth of their crimes. The only one who can make them fear is you. And me... The victims who will remain a victim no more.

Stand Up. Speak Out.


**Please take a look at the blog I have now set up to feature not only my story, but your stories as well. http://standingupforus.blogspot.com.tr/2014/01/victim-no-more.html  Give my posts a comment, and follow for updates when I post! Contact me if you would like to share your story. You are welcome to share anonymously or with your information attached. **

2014... YOU will be my Year!

I'm not going to lie. 2014 has some serious downfalls for me. It's another year abroad. Away from family. That kind of starts to wear on you! I love living overseas, but right now I am struggling. We will have a trip home soon (July!) and I'm sure that will refill my batteries and get us through much more to come! I am applying for several things this year, including a job, which holds its own stresses. And I'm hoping to grow more musically.

The biggest event to come in 2014 is the release of my step father from prison. I have had this on  my mind for weeks to write about and I keep holding myself back. Afraid to put this all in words. The dread and fear that I have of this persons release into the world again. It's easy to forget their general existence (aside from the physical and emotional scars) when they are locked away. Unable to get to you and those that you care about. But this is the year. The year that the man who terrifies me gets to walk freely again.

To say this is unjust doesn't really begin to cover it. I was 17 before I came forward with what was happening to me. And honestly I don't know when the abuse began. Sometime in the 3rd grade...

The feelings that started in me before the New Year can be intense. I'm sure that he will never contact me, because to do so could get him thrown back in jail, but the irrational fear that embeds itself into abuse victims is one I know all too well. I fear the person who is locked away, I fear my own fear, and I fear what could become of those I love when he is released.

I say all this in preparation for what I want to say next...

This is MY year. I will succeed in this year! I will grow in my faith to Christ and the God who loves me and saved me, and will continue to guide me. I will grow in my musical talent and ability. I want to really concentrate on getting better at both singing and playing. Harmonizing, and learning my voice and its capabilities. This year I want to begin making a difference in other abuse victims lives, be they in abuse now, just coming out of it, or still dealing with the scars left over. I WILL begin my book. In fact, as hard as it may be to post, I want to begin posting my ideas on this blog. I hope to reach other readers, other abuse victims, I want to get their stories, their scars, their fears, and I want to expose the world to what we are going through and what they can do, what we can do to make it better. Within the next week I want to begin posting my first thoughts on this book and how I want (and how God wants) this to move forward. First and foremost, something I have been lacking in, I want to begin every day with a prayer for those women and men out there who know what it is to be sexually, physically, and mentally abused.

I can already feel myself changing, and I hope that you can take this journey with me. I want you to grow and change with me. To become a stronger, better person. Whether you believe there is a magnificent God out there who loves you or not, you can journey with me forward in 2014. One of the scariest years of my life.

**please share this post. I really want to reach abuse victims. Share your stories with me. Your thoughts. Your fears. I will join you, I will love you, I will cry and pray for you. With you.**

Thanksgiving!

I'm incredibly excited about Thanksgiving tomorrow!

We have spent the holidays overseas, away from family, since our marriage began. Richard's first base was England, and now our second is Turkey. We lack the money and ability to make it home to see our family and the ones we love during the holiday season. Instead, we make a small family locally to share our holiday season with. Thanksgiving is my tradition (Christmas too, but that's a later post!)

Every year we have had others over to our home for a "family" style dinner. I still remember my first year as a spouse, cooking a giant feast for 10plus people (half of whom I didn't even know!) and it turned out amazingly! Since then, I conquer Thanksgiving with vigor and joy. I enjoy having people around me, and have always enjoyed cooking. Thanksgiving Thursday is my time to get together with a military family, whom would otherwise not have the joy of a "family" meal.

This year will be our biggest party yet! I find this kind of funny since we've only been at this base for a little over a month and a half...

Thanks to Richard's work schedule he has to work Thanksgiving day. ALL day... (He also has to work Christmas day... but hey! That is this life.) Anyways, we created our normal Facebook event because everyone knows it isn't official until it is Facebook official, and invited all of the people we had met and liked here. Then we decided to invite Richard's crew, and the other guys who have to work Thanksgiving with him. Now we have at least 20 people coming over! Most of them are here unaccompanied (without their spouses and/or children) or don't have anyone else to spend the day with. Which, I guess, is kind of all of us over here! It feels good to be surrounded by others in the same position as us. These people become our family when our real ones are unable to join us.

I will most definitely be taking pictures and posting another post either tomorrow or Friday. It might just be pictures, as I'm hoping there are no huge disasters that happen that would require me to actually write!

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I hope that if you are reading this and you are military, you know that you have a family in all of us.

I hope that if you are reading this and you have the pleasure to spend Thanksgiving day with your family, surrounded by those who love you, you will think of and pray for all of us small families overseas, all of those military members deployed, and all of those spouses back home wishing they had their loved ones.

So What if I'm Supposed to be Cleaning...

I may be cleaning at the moment... I may be sitting at my computer... typing... Or maybe I have a really long extra arm and I'm doing both!

Yeah. Who am I kidding. I'm so not cleaning right now...

Instead I keep walking around, picking things up, sweeping a small area, then wandering back to my computer to change a song I don't like on Pandora, or thinking about what I want to blog about, or checking my Facebook (why is Facebook so distracting!) I then wander into my daughters room to see what she's up to, which currently consists of pulling all the clothes out of the drawers in her closet and then putting them back in a rather more unorganized state than they were previously at... yeah. I just organized that dang closet two days ago!!

We have our shipment of household goods (HHG) coming in tomorrow (can I get a WHOOT WHOOT!), hence the reason I should be cleaning. I even put on some fun radio to try and spur on the 'cleaning momma' mood. Not working. Not working at all.

So since my body, my mind, or my whatever you want to call it has decided it wants me to write I'm going to share a happy memory that makes me miss my friends and family back home.

If you are friends with me on Facebook you may have noticed my status about my last job in America before I moved to England.

I worked at this fantastic little shop called Tribal Grounds Coffee from the time I was 16 years old until I left the country at 19 to begin my journey into military life, overseas living, and adventure! To say I loved this job would be an understatement. I ADORED my job. I loved immersing myself into coffee culture. And we are talking real coffee. Not that crap Starbucks calls a latte. Leon, my boss extraordinaire, was one of the best bosses I have ever had. Not only was he incredibly knowledgeable, passionate, and fair, he was also willing to learn from his employees. His passion stemmed into everything he did with the shop. It was here I learned all about latte art, customer service, the origins of coffee, and how to properly steam milk by sound and touch. I perfected skills that I still remember today! One of the few constants in my life was Tribal Grounds and the people there. When I was moved out of my house senior year of high school, when I left for college, when I was trying to get my Visa to England, Tribal Grounds and Leon were always there for me! I get serious cases of nostalgia when I think back to the amazing cups of coffee I would make for the locals and tourists. It was a great experience to have someone who was an avid Starbucks (or other non-independent coffee shop) goer tell you how the latte I had just made them changed their entire opinion of how coffee should be served.

I used to hang out at the shop on my days off with my friends, we would go to open mic night, I would flirt with my boyfriend, I made friends, and lost one whose presence I will always feel when going to that building. My job as a Barista is my best memory of the time of my transition from moody teenager to adulthood.

Leon has moved onto a new business in the bustling city of Durham called Cocoa Cinnamon, and I get so envious of the barista's who get a chance to work in such an amazing place! Leon and Areli (pretty much the best people ever) are creating a magical place that I hope to one day visit! If you get the chance to stop by, please do, and let me know how simply amazing it was (I doubt it will be nothing short of fantasmical).

And that is it for today... Thanks for joining me on my brain craziness of the afternoon!

These are two pictures taken during my first forays into latte art... I don't have any of my later designs or some of my best stuff unfortunately... That's probably because I was working.....

Welcome to My Version of Life

Good Lawdy...

This was our first real PCS (permanent change of station for you non military speaking folk) and it has been quite hard. Not gonna lie.

When I moved to England I was a newly wed with nothing to my name but my book collection and clothing. Now I have a family. A household. Responsibilities.

Sure. Driving to Turkey was hard. But when all is said and done, that was the easy part.

Adjusting here is really hard.

Turkey is foreign. And I mean FOREIGN. I'm not sure you can really grasp how weird it is here... On base is even different from the other bases I've been on. Some people can't speak English, and I can't speak the local language. Even grasping how to say thank you in Turkish is hard for me! It's the the most unsettling and disconcerting thing not being able to communicate with those around you...

 There are so many things about my life now that I can't really tell family and friends because it would endanger our OPSEC (operational security). There are a lot of financial issues that have arisen since getting here that we never foresaw that we are now having to deal with...

I have to confess that I am really struggling right now. I'm fighting with my husband, short tempered with my child, things keep seeming to go 'wrong' in our day to day lives. I feel like I'm struggling to make friends (friendships have always been a bit weird for me..) I spend thirteen plus hours a day with a fussy, teething, grumpy baby and I don't have my things. It's funny how that affects a person. I don't have the spices I want to cook with. I don't have my bed! I don't have my lamps. My pots and pans aren't here. My clothes, my towels, my stuff that I like are just not here. I know I can live without my things. They aren't necessary. Nice, but not necessary. However, when you have uncomfortable furniture and a lack of cooking supplies it does something to a woman!

We did find out today that our household goods have arrived and we get to have our things next week, but this just raises all kinds of other stressers (did the movers break anything important? Is my antique dressing table in one piece? Did some of my things not even make it on the truck? Are they going to actually unpack us or just leave us with boxes to do on our own?) I know these stresses are part of military life, but that doesn't make them NOT stressful. I dislike  hate when people say things like "It's just part of this life," or, "It's just stuff." Yeah. I know that. But it's my stuff! Just because I don't like the stress of some of the moving process, doesn't mean that I dislike the service that my husband does. I love being in the military family. I love living in Turkey. I love moving. I hate stress.

I'm sorry if this post seems a little erratic (and sad). It's late. I've had a very long and stressful couple of days with some bad news to complement all the other things going on and I just had to write. Here's the outcome of me just writing...

Don't worry! It will all work out (so I don't like when people say it to me... I can say it to myself!) I really like Turkey so far. I can't wait to have our car driveable to go explore! We've got some really cool things planned like a Saturday BBQ at our gardeners house (a very nice Turkish man). This is but a season in our time here, and it will pass quickly... Hopefully really quickly...

Welcome to My Version of Life...