It's not your fault!!!

Waking up every day thinking it's your fault. The thought of, "I must of done something wrong to have provoked people." "What is wrong with me," droning in my head on repeat. A broken record spinning out of control echoing, "you are evil." The thoughts of shame, disgust, guilt, and horror trembling through my veins in a circular motion. The disbelieve in the truth; the hard facts of abuse.

Time and time again, my memory fails me. The events of my past are nothing but a blur, an empty space in time. To feel like a liar, an attention-getter is a lonely feeling. I was so quick to find solitude in anything such as exercising and my eating disorder at a young age. The feelings of being high were intense while engaging in unhealthy coping skills. I never had to think of my past, nor deal with all the pain. I was a perfectionist in all I did. Life was grand, so I thought. Life began to fall apart in my early twenties with ED (eating disorder). I was slowly killing myself with defeat. I was a brittle, frail, vulnerable child stuck in an adult body. My mind was going to incomprehensible extremes of dieting and exercising. I was wasting away rapidly.

I was in California at the time, when I became very sick. I remember stepping off the airplane when I landed in Boston, and seeing my parents face of terror while they looked at the skeleton of their daughter. I was waving to them like strangers, as if they never recognized me. It took me a few more agonizing months to finally seek help. Finally, six months in the hospital, six months at Laurel Hill Inn, and then an intensive out-patient program for months to follow, began my road to recovery. It was at the hospital that I first heard those daunting words, "It's not your fault," but I was to numbed out to even consider it. There had to be reasons that had to do with my character flaws. I felt trapped, alone inside.

Today, a dear friend gave me a book called, "The Courage to Heal: A guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse" by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis. Hesitantly, I reached out my sweaty palms and grasped onto the book. I began to thumb through the pages, turning my attention to the chapter entitled: Understanding That  It Wasn't Your Fault. The headline shattered through my bones and rocked my chair. I was a deer in headlights. There is no way of explaining the sheer terror that one feels when their thought pattern is put to the test. My eyes were filling with tears of disbelief and disgust at the same time. My mind was trying to grasp the idea with hesitance. My instincts went into overdrive. I wanted to exercise, call myself fat, and belittle myself to nothing. I knew this was ED trying to control the situation. I took a deep breath, put the book down, and reflected on the hard facts, "It's not my fault!"

I started questioning everything. If it's not my fault, then who's is it? Why do people do bad things? What did I do wrong? Maybe I deserved all this suffering, but did I? No, no one does is the answer. Feeling trapped inside yourself is a lonely world. Knowing the hard facts can lead to a free soul. Today, WE SHALL NOT BLAME ourselves for our suffering. Hold your head high, and be proud of the person you are!!!

-A.N.T.