I am a pilgrim, without a road map, on this journey of healing. And as I turn and look back, I see who I was, standing there looking back at me, in the dust of the distant past. Barely recognizable to me,now, I can look at who I was, and know how many miles I have come. I can see the bittersweet, through tears raining down my face.This healing has been knit together, with the tender comfort of a warm blanket, and the fierceness of a storm. It has felt like being held in someone’s arms, and like being slammed into a mountain. The tenderness of healing has touched me more than words could say. The brutalness of it has left me begging for mercy.
It has been nineteen months now, since my final integrations with MPD happened. The healing is a little easier for me to take now. I trust more, the One who is painting my healing across the sky before me now. There are still days, where I pray to have hidden personalities, so I wouldn’t feel so alone. Grieving travels on with me. I feel like my whole life was taken from me, and I was thrown into another life. Feeling hollow, emptiness still echoes in my soul.And the cries that have risen from the depths of my heart, from the depths of my wounds, during this healing so far, are none like I’ve ever heard before. And I pray, once the healing is done, I never have to hear those cries coming from me ever again.They haunt me.
For the past eight days, I have been too worn out to struggle with the things I’ve struggled with daily, my whole life.Too worn out to go through the constant fear, the constant sorrow. I have always dissociated more when I am sick, and I have been sick.Flashbacks and body memories are much worse then, too. And while the fear and weight of it all crept in, I was able to just let those things fall away from me. I had no strength to carry them.I have been weighed down by so many overwhelming situations since I was healed. Been beaten down by it all. And I had no strength to carry my life long burdens anymore.
There has never been a time in my life, where I have not carried these weights around.They’ve always had a hold on me.But this time, I could no longer hold them. They poured off me like rain.Emotions have always loomed over me, like my abusers taking another piece of my soul.This change has been huge for me. Just like the first time I was able to feel two emotions at once, it’s shocking. Like a child seeing a flower for the first time.It is not constant,but I am am able to go to that place of peace,when I think of it. The awe resounds in me. I am still lost in it’s wonder. And in silence, I try not to shy away from my first glimpses of this flower of peace unfolding within me.
I am lost in the wonder of feeling the sorrows, slowly, being lifted from my shoulders.Yet, I feel I don’t deserve this. I was taught I deserve nothing good. When my integrations were going on, I felt I didn’t deserve to integrate. Any time something good has happened to me, any time someone has been nice,it has felt worse than abuse.It has reminded me of how I have been broken and bruised, and not received goodness. And the pain from people being nice to me, has made me pull away from them. A friendly smile, a hug, a kind word, feels like a slam into a wall. A reminder of all I’ve been through. But, slowly I am adjusting to the rare souls God has brought into my life, to show me what love is.
Recently, something happened that caused me to pull away from people once more. I was catapulted back into feeling more terrified of people than I had been in awhile. The fear is always there, but it had gotten better,somewhat. For some reason, I was treated in a very hurtful way by some people I know. And when I cried the last tear I could cry, I walked away. I just wanted to go into hiding again. I thought of no longer writing this blog. I felt it may have been why I’d been treated the way I was. There is alot of stigma with MPD. I learned that after my diagnosis. And I’ve learned that even though, I am healed now, some people still can’t shake free of that stigma.It’s branded into their hearts,like the brand they’ve put on me, and others with MPD.
For some time, now, I have been led, face to face, with some-who have deeply wounded me over the years. I have been terrified of them for years,too. But face to face, in fear, I stood with them. Everything in me wanted to run away from them. I was trembling, my legs shaking. They’d done so much damage to me, to my life. But one by one, I have faced them, in various circumstances, and God has had me show them the unconditional love and respect they never offered me. God had me there, in the darkest times of their lives, though they helped create some of the darkest times of my life. My outstretched hand to them, was nothing I could’ve done on my own. And as I offered them my hand, I no longer saw them as the giants I’d always seen them to be.
During the past eight days, as I’ve had no strength to struggle, my fear of people has begun to lessen,too.They are not so much the giants, and I- nothing. I am changing. Walking farther away from who I was, tears fly on the winds of change. And as I look down the path I have come from, and see who I was, I see the dust of a distant past. I see the hand of the One that holds me through it all.
This was SOOO beautiful. Thank you so much for writing this. I’ve been sick and going through some of the same things you describe in the second to last paragraph. It is so amazing when God steps in and gives you the wings to do things you know you could have never done alone. It’s amazing how healing is to be a channel of God’s love to others who have wronged us and how then all the masks that made us see giants fall away and we realize their minuteness. It really is like looking at a flower for the first time. 🙂 I’m still in awe and wonder of it. Thanks again!
I am overwhelmed with awe at what the Lord is doing in your life, Debbie! All glory and honour and praise to our wonderful Saviour, who gives us new life: the thief may have come to steal, kill and destroy but the Lord Jesus has come to overthrow the works of the enemy and to give us LIFE and that MORE ABUNDANTLY!
Sending lots of love in Him, and a hug.
Thanks. This was awesome and helps.
As always, Debbie, I am amazed at the gift in you. I felt the statement “tears fly on the winds of change” was such an accurate description of what we all experience at some point in our journey to healing and wholeness. Bless you, my precious sister.
Katherine @Onassignment
Thankful for that Hand. I’m holding it too. And shaking the dust off.