Never Gonna Get It!

I am often asked for tips on healing...for "one thing" that I can share, to help in moving through healing and pain. Well, healing is so much more than just one answer or one way, but there IS one thing that rings within me the past 20 years. And it is one of the greatest lessons I could have ever learned in my healing journey.

It took me nearly 20 years to get the courage to tell ANYone of the abuse. And when I finally did, tell my mom, I was ILL prepared for her response..."It's all in your head. You made it all up." her reply. Huh? Really? SHE DIDN'T BELIEVE ME?! I was always an honest person, so the fact that I wasn't believed shocked me. Totally caught me off guard! Made me retreat even further. And with more pain than I had gone to her with, I shuffled, head down from the room, and it would be another 13 years before I would find the courage to discuss it with her (or anyone) again. During that time I shared with a therapist that I had been totally blown away by my mom's disbelief in the truth. And that I didn't know how to deal with the double blow...the "being called a liar" essentially, and the void of what I really needed and was seeking from my mom. The little girl needed to be comforted, held, loved, supported by my mom. To hear "Shhhhh, everything will be ok my sweet daughter". When that didn't happen...I felt even lonelier than ever in my silent hell. And my therapist said something that would forever change my perspective. She said, "You can keep going to the hardware store to buy milk...but you're never gonna get it." I could keep going to my mom to get my needs met...but I was never gonna get it. Lightbulb moment! That single conversation changed my thinking FOREVER!

I have a "good" (by good, I would term more as fair...which is ok ;)) relationship with my mom now, and was able to free myself of any expectation, thus negating any unnecessary frustration. And I realized that my mom had her own pain and healing to move through, fueling her reaction to disbelieve the truth. And I see now that her disbelief in the truth...had nothing to do with her disbelief in me. Can you imagine hearing that your daughter had been violated and used in the most vulgar of ways? Learning that your daughter, whom you loved more than anything, had innocence stolen by someone you had allowed in to her child's life. As a mother now myself, I can understand how a parent could choose disbelief over dealing with the hauntings of the past - WRONG as that is (and...it IS!), I still see how that is possible. But as all of us on this page know, healing can ONLY come from acknowledging and in dealing with the truth.

When you find on your journey that you are met with people who are not giving you the support that you are seeking, let it ring in you as well that their lack of support should NOT take anything away from your wholeness! We all deal with pain differently. To remind myself, I replay in my head the En Vogue song "Never Gonna Get It, Never Gonna Get it..." so it saves me unnecessary energy from even tryyyyying to "buy milk at the hardware store". If I need a "hammer 'n nails", then mom's a good place to go. But if "milk" is what I am desperately needing, "The Hardware Store Of Mom"...I ain't NEVER GONNA GET IT! And it's ok. 'Cause hammer 'n nails have their place too. And milk...well I've found that elsewhere.