My Trust does not mean I share the skeletons in the closet. No, that is an average person. But I am not average. I am Crazy. In this case that means if you have earned my Trust you will know what makes me tick. You will hear stories of the things I Love most in this World. You will know what I value and why. And perhaps you know a little, perhaps I tried testing you on that level. Even more fail that Test of Trust than the First. Sharing what I love most, what I value the most, what people can use against me in anger - that is the Greatest Sign of Trust for me. There are very few in my past who I trusted with those weapons that can destroy my heart and mind, but a Great many today.
And yet - we are human. It is terrifying to Trust, to expose yourself to another. They will hurt you. Trust involves Pain when it is between to people filled with sin. I do not Trust people who will not hurt me with my own Trust. I Trust people for a variety of reasons, but the Greatest are that they know they hurt me and they make amends. I Trust people who learn from their mistakes and try not to hurt me. I Trust people who want to be Trusted with these things. Therefore - I often Trust people based mostly on the fact that they Understand that they are being Trusted and it is no little thing. They treat my Trust with care, because it is a Fragile thing indeed.
My Trust has not been around long. It was Broken too many times and I would not let God fix it. I tried to mend it myself. But not even Ducktape can piece together something like that. And so the more I was hurt, battered and broken - the less ease I had in putting it back together to try again. But no more. Now I have a Man who is Completely Trustworthy, and not even the fairy tale, movie kind. I have a Savior who has earned the Trust that He should never have lost. I don't deserve that. It still brings me to tears that He is willing to do such a thing for me. Yeah. Where are those damn tissues? Fuck. How the hell did I go through all those boxes? I never did this much crying before. Sanctification's obnoxious byproducts.
Anyways. I don't Trust. I never have. And the two groups I have trusted least are women and Christians. No, this is not going to be an convicting post. I want to understand something about myself, and the idea has already taken root and consumed me. Let me also prequel this with my personal dealings with anger. First - I get angry...A LOT. I get ALL emotions, except when I have numbed them. And I did that for a grand portion of my life. But when I feel, I feel EVERYTHING. And I feel it INTENSELY. So when I anger - I anger like a match lit close to a gas-leak. BOOM. And while you might be in the room, you may not even feel the explosion. Often, I contain it inside my own head. I do NOT like attention. Good or Bad - I cannot handle the spotlight. It comes with wanting so desperately to be normal(although I'm making fantastic headway with that struggle). But I do explode and I either find an outlet on another - or myself. Anger always needs an outlet. Every strong emotion does.
Usually I take it out on myself, but not always. The rare times I explode on another - it is a Scary, Dangerous and Horrible thing to behold. Bright, loud, catastrophic, but also quickly over. I do not stay angry. And afterwards, much like an explosion - I am spent and burnt out. And then I look around and see the damage I have wrought and I am Utterly Devastated. The Pain Never Fails to hit me after something like that. I hate myself with a vengeance that no other could possible turn towards me for even the most horrible thing I have done. And this is why I rarely explode. Why I would much rather hurt myself. Better to damage one already Broken than to break another. There are few I Trust in General, but only a handful I trust with my anger. If that. People who I know understand what is going on in my brain when that happens and are not quick to hurt me more than I am already hurting myself.
So that is my anger - I burn bright and fast and then I am Horrified with what I have done. Of course, I also have a cold anger. This is not one I often encounter within myself. Because of who I am and my shitty life experiences, if there is a way to forgive - I find it. There have been Very, Very few times I have burned so bright that I froze over. Even then, with God there is a way to thaw. But for me, when my anger lasts more than a couple of hours, I am on my way to freezing you out. There are three people in my life I have held a grudge against, a cold anger that burned as if it was hot, but without any explosion. All three are women. Only one was a non-Christian. I do not Trust Christians easily and I trust women even less.
Once upon a time all women were evil, because I lived in a world of black and white. Same with Christians. And if you've been following me you will know one of the Greatest reason my anger will ignite. I, like many, use anger as a defense. For Pain turned against another, particularly an attacker, allows you to escape it's cruelty and not feel as bad for it. Doesn't matter if the Pain was from that one person. If someone triggered a Great Deal of Hidden Pain through a small attack, lashing out at them can hide it safely away again. You can just pretend it was what they said or did that brought on such an extreme response, not what you have been hiding from yourself. There are many reasons to feel anger instead of Pain. Power. Control. Defensive Measures. Pain makes you vulnerable, anger can give you leverage.
I have been through that phase. It was not something I care to ever experience again. I know what it's like to use Anger for control, as a defense. I called her Ice Bitch. God banished her and I NEVER want to see her again. It is quite possibly the greatest reason anger terrifies me. I know I often talk about Pain, about others hurting me. But I realize I have talked very little about another aspect of that. I was hurt. You know this. I was beaten black and blue by many that I trusted. By my own church even. But I very rarely speak of what happened when they Broke me. I mean, I speak of it in a General sense. I ran away from God. But I rarely speak of how I did this. Why? I assume most of you already know and very few are comfortable with that knowledge. But perhaps it's time to put aside your comfort. People think I convict too much. It's a lose-lose situation. Let me take a moment to tell you of my faults. It does not make me uncomfortable. Although people's reactions to them do.
Very few can forgive me my history. Only God can do that. And so I rarely speak of it. But more and more lately I get the idea that I come across as preaching at people. Like I think I'm better them and without reason or cause to say what I say. When I was Broken by the Church and people I loved - I believed I deserved it. I believed that I was as Worthless as I was often treated. And at first I had hope. And over time that too was beaten out of me. And so I embraced my worthlessness. I grew to me miserably comfortable in my own shitty existence. And I not only shit on myself, but I asked others to shit on me. But there is no such thing as an innocent victim. I don't know where the movies got that idea. I also started shitting on others. I was the Ultimate Ice Bitch. You can only be hurt so long before you die or numb the Pain. But did you ever thing about what happens when you are numb? When you're heart turns to ice? My heart froze until it hardened. Then I no longer cared about myself or others. I was a wild card who was just surviving.
During those years I did whatever it took to keep the Pain locked away. I did drugs and I drank - but those never numbed my level of pain. However, they did help me to access what would. And so through the party world I found the men who would be willing to hurt me. Nothing intense or kinky. I was honestly too naive to know that kind of thing existed. I was always naive, just not innocent. But one of my favorite sayings was that "sex isn't any good if you don't come out of it with bruises and claw marks." And I had many. Oh - have I shocked you with my words? No - they don't shock me. Very little shocks me anymore. Until one day a man did. Just another man to screw. Just another man to get me through the night. Just another way to survive. But I woke up in his arms and he said something that makes me cry even now. He said "you are so sweet." To this day I will never forget that moment. The moment someone saw something I had long forgotten. Something he should Never have been able to see in me. He had already been warned away from me. He had already been told I was the workplace slut who doesn't even screw for money like the other girls. He was told I had Hepatitis and that I always go after the new guys, never caring if they had a girlfriend. Well, they got two out of three. But he still went out with me and it can only be God that gave Him the sight to see more than what was there. More than I even saw. From that day forward we were inseparable. Indeed, I can only remember one night apart after we started dating. For two and a half years we were together. He was my Best Friend. He saw in me what I had Long Forgotten and coaxed it back out a little at a time. He believed in me and I gave him my everything. Which is exactly what went wrong. This man became my savior. I gifted him my body, heart, mind and my SOUL. And yet - he was not Christ. Not only was he equipped to handle all that - but God is a jealous God and this man had become an idol to me. Eventually, he was taken away. But God is also a kind and loving God. We did not part on happy terms, but neither have I ever thought he was a bad man or cruel. He simply couldn't handle what only Christ can.
I was lost again after that. I never reverted back to the whore I was the days before this man attempted to rescue me. I respected him for what he had attempted to do too much for that. And so I did relationships instead, and then my boyfriend died. Things got messy after that. And that's my shit right there. I don't talk about it much because what's there to say? I usually just sum it up with "I'm a bad person". I have had more sex than I can remember and I was not just a victim, but a BITCH. There were men who fell for me. I wanted nothing to do with Love. I threw them to the curb like trash. There were women who were in relationships with the men I slept with, and I cared nothing for breaking them up. I wasn't eating and I was a tiny white girl who could get whichever man I wanted. There was no man I went after that I did not take. It became a game, the only thing that was of any worth to me at that time. And I was Skilled at playing it. There are very few times I lost that game and those men still hold a great deal of respect in my eyes for it.
So do not think I write convictions heedlessly. I write them because I know evil. I was it. I am not a good person. I am Broken and crying and screaming. I laugh as I cry and I bleed. I am not an untouched flower, but I am the Perfect storm on the sea. I will never be normal. How can I be? I have fucked too many. I have played too many games. I have broken too many others. I am a Bad Person. How can I be normal? How can I be normal when God fucking chose to save me? How can I not be different when I understand that God didn't chose his bride out of some fairy tale princess locked in a tower, no He chose to save the Ice Bitch reigning Devastation on so many lives. I was Maleficent, I was Every Evil Queen in Every Disney movie. I was a victim that ran away from her Pain, who ran away from God - and embraced Evil.
I am Broken.
I am Evil.
And yet - He chose me.
And I still don't understand! Particularly on nights where I remember. I remember those days where I reigned in my Broken, Worthless, Evil, seemingly beautiful body. Why do you think I hate being pretty? It reminds me of those days! I cannot convey how awful I was. I may fear emotions - but I fear the Numbness, the Icy anger Far More. And I knew it then. I was chosen and God was always trying to show me He loved me. But allowing Him to love me meant allowing myself to Feel. And the first feelings I never failed to feel when I tried to let myself - were Absolute Loathing. I Hated myself. The Hatred and Pain would wash over me like a Tsunami and then I would land in ICU. I couldn't handle it. I didn't know how.
But God is a sneaky God. I love Him for that. And so He sent me people to teach me. Unbeknownst to some of them, and definitely to me. A therapist, a Study, a Changed Church - God slowly earned my Trust and taught me how to handle the Pain through others. And then, when I started speaking to Him again - He used many more methods. And now I KNOW. I Know He loves me. I Know He cares. I Know He chose me and that I am Valuable to Him. I Know He sees me as more than even a Broken tool. He sees in me SO Much more than I, or anyone. I was "sweet" to a man I didn't even know at the time. To God - I am Irreplaceable. I am Invaluable. I am worth Far More than Rubies. I could never argue that myself. I can barely Believe it myself. But He has proven it. Over and Over again, God has told me I am Worth it. That He has made me Worthy.
I am Priceless.
I do not deserve this. I do not deserve Him. But I have Him. I was Broken. I was Evil. And I was always HIS. He will never leave me nor forsake me - no matter how hard I run or how much I try to push Him away. I will never be Grateful for my History. I hate what I did. I hate who I was. I hate what happened to me that made me that way. But there is NOTHING in this World that God cannot Transform. And the Greatest Miracle I have ever witnessed is His transformation of me. So no - I am not normal. How can I be? With the life I lived - I was jailed only once for a dui, I never got pregnant, never got an std, no diseases of any kind. I have very few physical scars for what I have done and I'm somehow also ALIVE when the doctors said there was NO Hope for at least one of my suicide attempts. Because God chose me and He wants me here. He sees that there is work to do that I can help with. I am not only loved - but He wants to use me, to bring Him Glory! Me?! A once reigning Ice Bitch?! I'm to help GOD with GOOD. Fuck me man. You know how much that can mean to a once-named-whore like me?
I know I have a hard time Trusting. I know I have a Hard time Loving in a Godly way. I learned a lot of things in my life - I can see past a fake mask like it's that of a clown. Manipulative women are my specialty as I was one. If I mark a man as safe - then he is. I can read people easily, although the reasons for why they are uncomfortable, upset, angry, etc are subject to needing more information. I have honed many skills to perfect my role as Ice Bitch, but now I find I am having to update them if you will. With God in the mix, these skills are still helpful - but they need a new twist. I am not finding fake masks to know who my enemies are, but to know who the hurting are. Manipulative women are not the competition - they need to be loved. And while I can turn to men who I mark as safe - I do not need the protection of their bed from those that are unsafe.
The evil queen may have a rapid change of heart in the movies, but that is not the Real World. Here - there be Monsters. And here - it takes time to change from a monster to a hero of any kind. It's been several years since I started the process and many relapses. But I'm Changing. I'm Growing. I'm learning how to be the Woman that God sees in me. A woman I never knew. I know here now. I see who I am and bits of who I'm meant to be. And I don't hate myself. I hate what I was. But it no longer drives me to hurt myself or scream when I remember. I just cry. I cry a lot these days. I hate crying. I am not crying now. But my head hurts.
I hate ending on a bad note. This is known. So let me find that poem I wrote in a previous blog post and end with that. A poem I am transposing as a song, hopefully. Maybe I'll work on that next. Anyways - here it is:
I am His Perfect Storm
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