Walking Into My Future Backwards
July 17, 2020
It was necessary that I continued glancing back. I had to make certain that my past was keeping pace with me. There were occasions I had to walk back and drag my past to where I was in life. Many don’t realize how tough it is to maintain your status in life as a victim. Why can’t people see and let you live your life?
I knew telling my story repeatedly would keep my body going through the same trauma over and over. The pain, the dread and the heartaches always present in my body. But I had to keep repeating my story or else how would people learn what happened to me. If only my mind would recognize that we were not experiencing the trauma now and I was just only telling my story.
It should have never taken place and there should be some retribution for the act towards me. It seemed as if I was being penalized; I did not commit this evil against myself. My body language helped a lot, because individuals would question my conduct, which provided me another opportunity to share my dreadful story. Their expression of pity was so consoling. Their word of sorrow for all I had gone through soothed me. They understood my pain.
I have made it my life mission to not let my abuser get away with what they did to me. Even though my health is declining, I have to find the energy to keep my story alive. The headaches are becoming more intense lately and the pain in my chest has stop pounding and feels more like a burning sensation. My doctor has strengthened my high blood pressure medicine. Staying focus is essential.
“No, I am not coming to the family reunion, why do you continue calling me every year and begging me”? Slamming the phone down, I couldn’t figure out why she of all people would call me about the family reunion. When I told her what took place, she promptly replied that it couldn’t have happened. Accused of blaming him because he wouldn’t let me go to summer camp that year was all I could stand. There was a reason he wouldn’t let me go and I know she knew it, even though she denied it.
**********
Breathe, breathe, inhale and hold for the count of 8 and exhale slowly. Inhale again, hold, release slowly. I had missed the past several family reunions and would miss this one.
I could not believe the boldness of a person who knew they had hurt you, damaged you for life. How do they have the nerve to walk around like a free person while you remain in the prison they created for you? No, there will be no family reunion for me this year either. How does someone know they have abused someone else goes about life looking so normal and displaying their life as “a great upstanding person”?
Therefore, I must keep my story alive. There has to be some retribution for what they did to me. Oh, no my head, no, no my body is reliving the nightmare. No, body, it is merely my thoughts we are not going through this. Stop it, please stop it. Another episode leaving my body drenched in sweat, pain and fear. There has got to be a means to stop this, Lord, please there has to be a way to make this go away. Help me, Lord!
**********
The doctor will have to give me something stronger this time. This was my third trip back here in two months. I hope my doctor get it right this time. The reception looks at me as if she won the office bet that I would be back before the month was over. “Dr. Same your new doctor will examine you today. He is with another patient and will be in to see you shortly”, the nurse advised me while getting my blood pressure.
The doctor walked in, and I practically laughed. He was a funny-looking man. “Hello, I have reviewed your charts,” he said, taking a seat.
"Well, I am here because I need a stronger prescription, what I am taking is not working”.
“I understand, carefully looking at the meds you are already receiving, why do you think you require stronger medicine,” he replied looking me straight in my eyes. He had the most peculiar looking eyes.
“Because what I’m on is not working”, I answered, also snapping.
“Explain why you think the meds you are on are not working.”
“Explain; explain what, I thought to myself?”
“Will you shed a little more insight on why you consider they are not working,” he stated.
“I am still in pain,” I replied, dragging my words out for him to understand.
“The suffering you are bearing in your body, you have absolute control over, not the medication.”
“What do you mean, I have control over,”
By this time all my emotions were at attention, my story was lying on my tongue, my tears were in positions… ready. My mind was struggling to balance my thoughts so I could talk.
**********
“What I mean is the pain in your body is not a medical condition,” he answered as he leaned forward.
I started laughing because there was nothing else to do at this moment. “Ok, if it is not a medical condition, then doctor tell me what it is.”
Leaning back in his chair and placing my charts down left me with a nervous feeling. “The anxiety that you are going through is coming from your thoughts. The pain is happening from the experiences you are living over and over in your mind. Your mind does not grasp that the experience is over each time your thoughts relive them. Once the abuse stopped you then turned into the abuser of yourself.”
“Oh, my God, the man is insane,” my mind was shouting. When I went to stand up my body would not move. My mind signaled for my tears to flow, but nothing happened. Taking a deep breath and slowly exhaling twice, I open my mouth for my story to come out… nothing. I reached back to grab a hold of my past.
“Let the past go,” I heard the doctor say.
What was happening to me, why could I not respond?
“What occurred with you should not have taken place and if you don’t let it pass, it will destroy you”
Sitting there, not able to say anything, my thoughts could only speak. “it has already destroyed my life, I shouted out in my mind.”
“As long as you carry your story around you will cause your normal body functions to stop functioning properly,” he continued.
How can you be numb and everything still hurt I was thinking? “Since you say this is not medical, what do I need to do to stop the pain, I finally heard my voice?”
**********
Leaning forward again, when he spoke I could not believe my ears. This time his words had jerked me out of my chair and I was spinning and screaming in the middle of the floor. “What do you mean I have to forgive, forgive are you crazy? I was a victim. Why am I forgiving?” When I needed these stupid tears, they wouldn’t come. Sitting down, I leaned forward and looked the doctor straight in his eyes, “I will never forgive, never.”
“You need to forgive,” he repeated.
My head ached so severely that I felt I was dying. We both were staring at each other silently. It was something strange about his eyes. Drain of all human strength, I demanded, “why should I forgive?”
“Forgiveness frees you. It breaks you from the past. You are taken out of the past. The past is where the pain is, in the present the abuse is not there. When you forgive you set yourself free. It set you independent of your abuser who you have had attached to you all these years. You have been going backward into your future, pulling pain with you, that keep dragging you backward,” he ended and sat back.
“So you are suggesting I could have stopped the aching years ago”
“Yes”
“I have suffered for so many years and did not think I could have stopped the pain. How do I forgive?”
“When you forgive you are not suggesting that it did not take place, but you are saying you will no longer take part in the act. You may never get over it, but you can move pass it. It may take time, but I assure you one day you will glance back and the past will look distant and you will discover you have advanced ahead because you have been facing forward.”
“I forgive,” I responded. In my heart and mind, I knew that I meant it.
Standing up, the doctor held my hand, “your entire life will be different from now on.”
Gather myself and heading out of the room, the door opened before I could turn the doorknob.
“I am sorry for keeping you waiting, I’m Dr. Same. Sorry for the wait, I just passed Dr. Worth in the hallway he is new to our staff. It looked like he was coming out of your room.”
(I wrote this in Aug, 2011. I revised this after listening to my Friend/Sister Pastor Joyce Diggs of God’s Sacred Place of Worship, Baltimore, Maryland sermon this past Sunday 07/12/2020. Her topic, “Getting pass what you may never get over”. She stressed there will be offense(s) that can’t be reconciled. Yet we must move pass them. To hold on mean we have given control to some portion of our life for someone else to control. Amen)
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