Monika Basile's Blog: Confessions of a Bleeding Heart - Posts Tagged "hurt"
A Song for Those in Hiding
Ready or not, here I come. We shouted this as children when playing hide and seek. There is a fascination in both parts of the game, the seeking and finding, and the staying hidden so as not to be found. There are more who are hiding.
So many of us remain hiding within our own lives. I think we may be afraid that if anyone looks too closely they will find something that is less than pretty. We are afraid we will be judged. We fear others will think we are weak or foolish. We tremble at the mere thought of someone knowing how low we might have sunk, how deep the hurt lies and how there are things in our existence that give us nightmares. We live among the shadows of our past and the ghosts that linger and we pretend that none of it mattered and nothing has touched us that deeply.
We hide. We don’t have to. We just do it as some misguided attempt of self-preservation.
There is a piece of my life I kept hidden for many years. The saddest part is that I hid it from myself too. I was afraid of examining it all too closely and having to wear the title of victim. Who wants that name associated with themselves? Who wants to think that they are someone that was caught in a nightmare, with little opportunity to escape into the unknown? Who wants to be known as a victim of their own choices and mistakes? Not me. That is a phrase I have whispered in my soul for years with little understanding of why I said it. Not me—I did this, I didn’t fix it, and I didn’t run.
It took me many years to realize that fear can paralyze you.
It was strange to think that I deserved sadness and heartache because of a choice I initially made. I allowed things into my life that I didn’t realize would attempt to destroy me. I didn’t know how to ask for help. I didn’t know that I even was entitled to help since I chose the spot I was in not comprehending exactly where that spot really was.
Battering is not always physical punches and kicks. It is a left hook at your heart and a karate chop to the soul. It leaves you shaking and quivering and stunned and then telling yourself it’s only words and they said words can never hurt you. It’s a lie. Words haunt you. Words can beat you down. Even after a voice stops shouting, stops sneering, stops degrading—it is not silenced. It is a bell ringing with echo upon echo into your very being. Words are left resonating inside of us and then our own timid chirps will join in and give the monster in our nightmare more power. “It’s true. It must be true. It is real. I am what he says I am.”
Ten years after escaping, ten years later I finally realized what the hell had happened to me. I finally understood that my reactions to other events in my life were a direct result of what I had been a part of for twenty years.
The healing didn’t come with leaving and starting over. The healing came with love. I was graced with family and friends gathering around me; the same people I hid my life from, were the same people who drew me back to the living.
The healing came with finding out that I could go on—no matter what, I could go on.
The healing came with the understanding that I was still me, a woman with hopes and dreams and a good amount of ability to love grandly and deeply and greatly.
The healing didn’t come with the knowledge that I didn’t deserve to be a victim. No one deserves to be the victim of someone else’s misery.
The healing came with actually believing it. Truly believing it.
That voice at times still echoes—not so often, but yes, it is still there to creep up on occasion. Only now, I am louder. My voice is louder. Even when I am only whispering, my voice is singing a song of a survival so strongly it drowns out the echoes until they fade away into nothing.
And I am so utterly grateful that I have found my life’s song.
Monika M. Basile
So many of us remain hiding within our own lives. I think we may be afraid that if anyone looks too closely they will find something that is less than pretty. We are afraid we will be judged. We fear others will think we are weak or foolish. We tremble at the mere thought of someone knowing how low we might have sunk, how deep the hurt lies and how there are things in our existence that give us nightmares. We live among the shadows of our past and the ghosts that linger and we pretend that none of it mattered and nothing has touched us that deeply.
We hide. We don’t have to. We just do it as some misguided attempt of self-preservation.
There is a piece of my life I kept hidden for many years. The saddest part is that I hid it from myself too. I was afraid of examining it all too closely and having to wear the title of victim. Who wants that name associated with themselves? Who wants to think that they are someone that was caught in a nightmare, with little opportunity to escape into the unknown? Who wants to be known as a victim of their own choices and mistakes? Not me. That is a phrase I have whispered in my soul for years with little understanding of why I said it. Not me—I did this, I didn’t fix it, and I didn’t run.
It took me many years to realize that fear can paralyze you.
It was strange to think that I deserved sadness and heartache because of a choice I initially made. I allowed things into my life that I didn’t realize would attempt to destroy me. I didn’t know how to ask for help. I didn’t know that I even was entitled to help since I chose the spot I was in not comprehending exactly where that spot really was.
Battering is not always physical punches and kicks. It is a left hook at your heart and a karate chop to the soul. It leaves you shaking and quivering and stunned and then telling yourself it’s only words and they said words can never hurt you. It’s a lie. Words haunt you. Words can beat you down. Even after a voice stops shouting, stops sneering, stops degrading—it is not silenced. It is a bell ringing with echo upon echo into your very being. Words are left resonating inside of us and then our own timid chirps will join in and give the monster in our nightmare more power. “It’s true. It must be true. It is real. I am what he says I am.”
Ten years after escaping, ten years later I finally realized what the hell had happened to me. I finally understood that my reactions to other events in my life were a direct result of what I had been a part of for twenty years.
The healing didn’t come with leaving and starting over. The healing came with love. I was graced with family and friends gathering around me; the same people I hid my life from, were the same people who drew me back to the living.
The healing came with finding out that I could go on—no matter what, I could go on.
The healing came with the understanding that I was still me, a woman with hopes and dreams and a good amount of ability to love grandly and deeply and greatly.
The healing didn’t come with the knowledge that I didn’t deserve to be a victim. No one deserves to be the victim of someone else’s misery.
The healing came with actually believing it. Truly believing it.
That voice at times still echoes—not so often, but yes, it is still there to creep up on occasion. Only now, I am louder. My voice is louder. Even when I am only whispering, my voice is singing a song of a survival so strongly it drowns out the echoes until they fade away into nothing.
And I am so utterly grateful that I have found my life’s song.
Monika M. Basile
The Ultimatum
I have never believed in ultimatums—at least until I needed to give one. I never thought it was fair or right to expect someone to do anything if they did not choose it themselves, if they did not come to some conclusion that something must change. I never felt it was good to impose what I believed on anyone else.
What I didn’t realize is that an ultimatum doesn’t actually make anyone choose anything one way or another. The choice is in the giver of it. There comes a time in life when we inherently know what we can and cannot not live with. There comes a day when we look on our life and ask ourselves, “Can I do this another 20 years, another ten years, another year, another week, another day or even for one more hour?”
I discovered that no matter what prayer I had for another to change, the ultimatum given is to me. I had to decide that if what was destroying me did not stop—that I was worth saving. You would think that this kind of choice would be easy but it isn’t. It is devastating. It is an earthquake even if it is only that way to me. It is an actual shattering of something deep inside of a past, a present and a future even. How can that decision possibly be easy? And how do I decide and believe that I am worth saving, when for the majority of my life, I was too busy saving others to bother to examine my own existence which had been teetering on the edge too closely?
I have never been one to give up too easily—not on anything and especially not on someone I love. I guess I have always looked at it as a failing to give up on the people around me whom I hold dear. I mean what would that say about me as a person? What does it present to the world for me to put my salvation before another? What will I think of myself? I am someone who has lived their life in service to others and if I turn my back, if I say, “enough”, if I shut myself off from another—how can that possibly be true? And how do I live with the ultimatum? How do I keep going on knowing that my decision has hurt someone else?
This past year has been one of immense heartache and loss and yes—guilt. I chose me. It is not something I am used to doing. I chose my own well-being, I chose my own safety, and I chose my own peace by holding to an ultimatum to allow myself an end to what had become quite miserable. It is the aftermath part that pain lingers in. It is in this spot where I doubt myself, wondering if I tried harder for longer and did not give up. This is the thought that keeps me up at night.
It is different than regret. My mind and my heart both tell me sticking to this ultimatum is what saved me. I know the choices were very few. In the end there were only two things to choose from—fall to pieces in someone else’s destruction or go on alone. That is where the ultimatum I gave came from. Them or me. I am just not used to choosing me. I wasn’t even sure if I was capable of choosing me as the end approached.
I surprised myself. As you see, I am still here—going on.
Monika M. Basile
What I didn’t realize is that an ultimatum doesn’t actually make anyone choose anything one way or another. The choice is in the giver of it. There comes a time in life when we inherently know what we can and cannot not live with. There comes a day when we look on our life and ask ourselves, “Can I do this another 20 years, another ten years, another year, another week, another day or even for one more hour?”
I discovered that no matter what prayer I had for another to change, the ultimatum given is to me. I had to decide that if what was destroying me did not stop—that I was worth saving. You would think that this kind of choice would be easy but it isn’t. It is devastating. It is an earthquake even if it is only that way to me. It is an actual shattering of something deep inside of a past, a present and a future even. How can that decision possibly be easy? And how do I decide and believe that I am worth saving, when for the majority of my life, I was too busy saving others to bother to examine my own existence which had been teetering on the edge too closely?
I have never been one to give up too easily—not on anything and especially not on someone I love. I guess I have always looked at it as a failing to give up on the people around me whom I hold dear. I mean what would that say about me as a person? What does it present to the world for me to put my salvation before another? What will I think of myself? I am someone who has lived their life in service to others and if I turn my back, if I say, “enough”, if I shut myself off from another—how can that possibly be true? And how do I live with the ultimatum? How do I keep going on knowing that my decision has hurt someone else?
This past year has been one of immense heartache and loss and yes—guilt. I chose me. It is not something I am used to doing. I chose my own well-being, I chose my own safety, and I chose my own peace by holding to an ultimatum to allow myself an end to what had become quite miserable. It is the aftermath part that pain lingers in. It is in this spot where I doubt myself, wondering if I tried harder for longer and did not give up. This is the thought that keeps me up at night.
It is different than regret. My mind and my heart both tell me sticking to this ultimatum is what saved me. I know the choices were very few. In the end there were only two things to choose from—fall to pieces in someone else’s destruction or go on alone. That is where the ultimatum I gave came from. Them or me. I am just not used to choosing me. I wasn’t even sure if I was capable of choosing me as the end approached.
I surprised myself. As you see, I am still here—going on.
Monika M. Basile
