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The past week and especially the past few nights, going to sleep has been hard for me. When I do sleep, my brain doesn't seem to want to shut down. Working "over-time" trying to figure out the deep secrets from the past.
Glimpses from the past flash before me, while I sleep, giving way to nightmares. Taking me to a place I don't want to be, but in the same breath, I want to finish the puzzle pieces, put them all together, and be done with it. But those last pieces, just won't fall into place, so the mystery continues, keeping me from having the amount of sleep my body needs. Nightmares I know can't hurt me, but when you are into one, that is the least that is on your mind. You can't say to yourself, "Ok, Mary, this is a nightmare, it can't hurt you."
You are in that nightmare, you feel it with every part of your being, a part of your body, of you mind. You are there, like it is really happening to YOU!!! My nightmare/dream, whatever you want to call it, is being persistent, bringing me down during the day. I can feel my mood change. I don't show it to those around me, they see the happy Mary, the fun Mary. Living a life of pretending since my childhood, is a hard habit to break. I was so good at it. I had to be, couldn't let the family unit know that "dad was abusing his daughter," so I pretended all was fine. I often thought as a child, and just thought of this now, what would have happened if I told? Would I have destroyed the family? As a child the answer was yes, it would have or at least would have made them hate me, because I really don't think anyone would have believed me in the first place.
Back to my nightmare, I am there, but the person who is making me go into the attic, is a blur to me. If I could at least connect with a face, then maybe I could let it go, but not knowing is bothering me. For a little kid, that dark attic was a very foreboding place, a place I hated, and what made it even worse is that it was in my bedroom. The houses back when I was a baby, were made in the 30's or 40's, and the attic was a room with a door from within the bedroom. My brother and I would go inside sometimes, but I wouldn't venture far from the door. It wasn't a safe place for me, and I felt it and even as I am writing this, I can picture it in my mind, can feel the pain that hurt me in this place. The memory of my mother locking me in there for what seemed to me a life time, but I am sure was only a few minutes and then when she unlocked the door slapped me as I came out crying and said, "Now have you learned your lesson?"
What lesson? I have no recollection of what I did wrong as that small child. Looking back at some of the pictures of me as a young child, I know now why I looked very solemn in some of my pictures. No smiles, even at my first communion walking off of the altar after receiving the host, you would think someone had scolded me for the way I looked. I looked hurt, sad, while everyone else was happy that day.
Connecting the last few puzzle pieces could bring an end to my connection with the demons of the past. But the puzzle pieces are still lost. Hopefully they will be found, I will be able to finish this part of my past, but there are still a few more pieces left of other things I feel, that are not right. That little girl inside of me who I thought was ok, is still hurting, she is caught with one foot in the past, when she wants to move forward, be free, have that smile fixed on her face. I really thought this part of myself was over, but I am realizing that my little self is still struggling, which in turn makes me feel the way I am. I am trying hard to find the inner peace inside myself so that I can then be able to "throw away the key," lock up the past and finally be done with it, thus hopefully ending the hold with the past has on my little self.
Tonight when I go to bed, I am going to try what my friend Patricia Mcknight said to me yesterday. Snuggle up to my husband, feel the love that is around me, my kids, grandkids, all the positives I have in my life. Where I am now. I know it's not going to be easy to do, but it is something to concentrate on other than the past. It's controlled my life enough, it's time for me to take full control, release the hold that I really thought was gone, and live for the now, and for the remaining time of my tomorrows. Abuse stole all of our souls as kids, but are we going to let it continue to consume us? If we do, then we are losing again. The monsters who stole us the day they touched us, will always have control. We CAN'T let that continue. As much as it hurt us, we are now free, but we have to really realize that.
The puzzle pieces may never fit all into place, and even though we hate that this is happening, I am realizing and I hope everyone can also realize and ask, " Is it really important to fit those pieces into place?" Or living our lives now as survivors more important. I know I am going to be right in saying the latter. Survivors we are and survivors we will always be. If we can let that little girl/boy inside of us know this, then she/he will come out and not be afraid of the nightmares that can't hurt her/him any longer.
Mary Graziano©
February 23, 2014
