so, i went back to school last year; i began the quest to gain an avenue for helping ppl with the burdens set upon them. burdens from child abuse and the aftermath of healing. i am seeking to break the chain of abuse. i will be a psychology counselor in two more years. i am using my past to empower myself toward a higher charge.

may we all find our way to a peaceful place.

'tethers'

i'm finding the tethers you gave to me.

tethers holding down my soul
they bind me.
i am finding it harder to breathe,
the more i see them,
the more i know their presence,
the more bound i know that i am
and that i have been

they twist and knot themselves together,
find weakened spots and plant root
deeper into my core
my being

but i have a few tools to show them
i'll introduce them
to my will,
my faith,
my endurance,
my never ending supply of tenacity

me and my God will win in the end!
the final blow will be ours!
and the roots will slip from me
like withering petals
gently retreating,
letting go of the whole of me

the tethers of dependency
of willfulness and denial
of wanting my way or no way
of extremism
of passivity and cowering
of fear and doubt
of survival

the tethers of my lack of knowing self,
low confidence and instability,
the binding of self in 'what ifs'
and what had been,
the strangling tethers of
self sacrifice to the nth
and pain and the victim role

oh yes, i will be freed
free to feel and to want
and to give without loosing all i have
the freedom to fly
in the face of fear,
to be the whole of me

i'll be free!
praise the High and Holy God,
i will never cower then!

11-13-07 10PM (date i wrote this)

spent dry

opening the can of worms
that is twisting and turning
inside of me
just below the surface
held back by sheer and utter terror

i am unwilling to move
forward or back
any prospect of movement
will split me wide open
like a rotting corpse

dead and numb
my heart beats on
with or without my permission
reeling and spinning

my mind twists out thoughts
thoughts i ignore with great skill
my gutt wrenches on
filling to the brim
the maggots eating away
at my strength to withhold myself
from bursting forth

screaming in agony and anger
for what was done
what was set in stone
that day

the only thing that settles me
is knowing
no matter what i do
this will end
that knowing brings me satisfaction
and apathy,
will to live
and reason to die,
consolation of past sorrow
and consolation of exsisting beyond it,

i faint
i stand
i deliberate the decision to take another breath
and with that small decission i am spent dry

just hanging out to dry

so this man died......
the one who was nearest
to a father
that i had ever had

i bawled
like a baby
off and on
all day, yesterday

the only thing is i had had
a mixed message memory
one of him hurting me
in the shower
when i was only
seven

only my mind
was so sure
when the memory
came back to me
i was possitive

then denial set in
and i began to doubt
who really hurt me
not that the event happened
just who it was

and still i cried
even more
and still more
and again
till i am soaked

and i think
i am done
mourning him
and yet
still
the puzzle

need to let it go
need to move on
need to be stronger
need to find a way
to be done

and yet
still
the puzzle
haunts me
in my sleep

letter to a perpetrator

i know you didn't expect to be hearing from me after all these years... how long has it been since? 25? no, closer to 35 years now... yeh, it still effects me..... no, i don't want you to feel satisfaction from that, i want you to feel shame and anger toward yourself and motivation to never hurt again. no, a heartfelt promise will not do.. action taken to make it known that you will never do this again, instead you will show your self and learn and grow to be a better person.... that will make a difference.

my life hasn't been a failure b/c of you... i have been successful at rising from victim to survivor to one who is now learning to thrive. i don't say that to make you feel any sense of relief, but to let you know you didn't win at taking me down... i am still standing despite your efforts to take me down. i will not falter or allow your voice in my life. no longer will i shy away from triggers but learn about them and deal with them and become stronger still. you never have ruled my life, even as a small child, and you never will.

when a child, i found safety inside, where you could not reach me, and now i know God gave me all it took to forget you till such time that i could handle knowing what you had done to me.... thanks be to God for keeping you out of my heart and soul, and not letting you poison me to repeat, what you had done, to my own.... God forbid.... that i could have.... that scares me deeply to the bone and marrow....

so knowing you have done this thing, to anyone, especially one so young and vulnerable, how does that make you feel??? does it shake your foundation as it rightly should.... does it make you feel you are hanging onto an unraveling bit of what is left of your sanity? do you have regrets? or are you cold and bitter and unchangeable... God forbid that be true... even i would not wish that destiny upon you..... not even i

i was full of furry and rage toward you, but i since have allowed it to surface and have thrown my share of rotten apples in your name and popped faceless balloons with your name many times... and have broken rocks in fits of rage and fear.... it took over a three year period of my life, but i rid myself of that hate i harbored for you and all others like you from my past....

i have written reams of paper with those things that happened, not mincing words but clearly delineating the fresh wounds and the scar tissue and the rot that seethed out in between.... it is out now, festered against my will, but accepted and lanced with the knife in my own hand. i am free of the childhood that once haunted my background self.... the part of me that felt twisted and atrophied due to fear of use and the welling up.... now i know the whole of me... and am working to release the small tethers that remain to allow myself to live life comfortably within my own skin.

so now no malice is here to burn you with, no scathing words will haunt your dreams from me. simply let this last bit ruminate inside your mind.... you harmed a young girl when she trusted the world and changed her innocence into fear... what was taken from you as you did that unspeakable thing and what is left now, for you to deal with like a man or a mouse? which will it be?

God forgive you,

~coral

yeh, it hurts

i am creating this blog to reveal the pain, the steps, the any day kinda stuff that is not so fun to hear... if you want cheerful... go back, turn away.... cause this post isn't for you.

i was born the youngest of four; two brothers, a sister, and i. my first memory is that of my father yelling at my second brother. he had wet the bed, and my father was snapping his belt, yelling, forcing him to hold hot peppers in his mouth and go to bed, in his wet bed, naked. there was the sense of a gun... and me being carried back to bed...

this memory occur ed before i was 3.... it is hard even for me to believe i could remember back that far... but the sights, the sounds and the smells tell me it was real.

that is the way life was.... and so much more like it... tho my dad left when i was 2, my mom cont. the abuse, not violently abusing, sno she was too delicate a woman for that... she molested all of us. yes, i did say all. yes, it is a fact. and yes... i may say this as a calloused over person.... but yes, it hurts.

i want this out there... in a public place b/c i want to talk to people about child abuse... i wanna speak to ppl about what it felt like, what it feels like and what it took for me to get to yesterday, today and tomorrow....

i wanna publish the 200+ pages that i wrote about all of this.
i wanna go around my community, my state, and my country shouting this out... letting ppl know that i understand their pain, their shame and to allow them to find their voices too.
i want to allow 1 of four women and 1of 6 men to be free to raise their hand in acceptance of what happened to them and to not feel hindered to get help or to move on or to do whatever he/she decides to do with it... but mostly to encourage us all to band together to choose for the cycle to end!

i want to help educate and to connect ppl with education to raise awareness and freedom to report, to ask, to help those innocent and unable to help themselves.... too many have said to me, 'i knew something was wrong, but i didn't know what' i have read signs of my abuse on my report cards... "she was outgoing last quarter but now she doesn't even want to go outside at recess" i want ppl who have a gutt instinct to use it to help... not to stay silent and complacent.

i tell you, those being hurt deserve to be helped and those doing the hurting... well, they deserve to be helped too! shocking to think i would feel that way, huh? well, i didn't want my family, the only one i had to fall apart... but i knew my mom needed help.... i just didn't know how to get it for her... how many 7 year olds know how to get help for a parent?

it is up to all the adults to work together to keep the children safe!
yes, this is addressed to you and to me... and to all... yes, we are all responsible to change our world to a kinder place. NOW is the time.

please let me know what you think....

please let me know my voice was heard....