I was not abused physically as a child. However, I was emotionally neglected. I survived by either ignoring the abusers or responding with fire. I was misunderstood. My behaviors brought chaos and labeling and name-calling. My family needed a scapegoat in order to survive and I became one. Looking back it led me to my calling. Dr Allender said it well, “Don’t waste You your pain.” You can’t lead someone out of a place you’ve never been in to a place you don’t know.
I grew up feeling like an outsider, an outlier, with a goal. I told myself: No one is going to throw you off the cliff.
I will survive. I began to learn to live in my 40s. Not just surviving. It all began when I heard that God truly love me unconditionally. I began to learn to love God, love myself and love others. I had to remind myself daily because I had a trust issue.
Yeah I’m a real late bloomer.
I went back to school to study the unseen part of human being, Sister Teresa of Avila calls the Inner Castle (the soul: mind, emotions, and freewill).
Children who have experienced abuse and neglect are therefore at increased risk for a number of problematic developmental, health, and mental health outcomes, including learning problems (e.g., problems with inattention and deficits in executive functions), problems relating to peers (e.g., peer rejection), … Experiencing childhood maltreatment is a risk factor for depression, anxiety, and other psychiatric disorders throughout adulthood. I had all of the above.
I learned that identifying my issues led me to forgive. Forgiveness cleansed my inner castle. It was full of bitterness and hate and resentment. And they were stinking bad. I was full of fear, shame and guilt. The love of Jesus helped me clean up, rearrange the furniture, straightened the pictures on the wall, arrange the books on the shelves, dust the furniture and lit a candle to keep my inner castle warm and fragrant.
For we are the sweet fragrance of Christ [which exhales] unto God, [discernible alike] among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing: To the latter it is an aroma [wafted] from death to death [a fatal odor, the smell of doom]; to the former it is an aroma from life to life [a vital fragrance, living … (2 Corinthians 2:15-16a).