Groping in the Dark

This blog has always been a place for me to write the things on my heart, and shake the shame the keeps them hidden. An outlet. I put this blog on the internet, in true form to my indirect compulsion to be found out. And of course the people that I wanted to find out, the people that would bring the shame that I expected, found out. And then what?

I hid. I broke down and hid. And who am I writing to now? To say that I'm writing for the sake of myself would be a lie, because I would write that somewhere no one would read it. I guess I'm writing this to the people that have shamed me.

Why?

To make another appeal to be understood? By those that have declared their utter disgust and rejection at my honest thoughts? Perhaps. But why would I do that? One answer is that I feel compelled to punish myself by begging for understanding from those I know will never give it to me. A deeper, but not contrary answer is that I want it! I need approval. I need affirmation. But why from them? Those that haven't got any understanding or affirmation to give?

Because I'm reliving the first offense. The one that I was told not to talk about. I never had any sympathy for those people who got raped or abused in some other way and never told because they were threatened by the offender.  Now I do.

The reason I have compassion for them now is that I understand. I understand having my survival instincts block out my memories. Pinned down under my own desire for love and safety. I still long for these things, pine for them. Need them. But now, (what seems like always) I reach for them, but my arms are tied by fear.

And here I am writing again, to an audience that will only give me echoes of my painful past. I hear the words of affirmation from people and they roll through me like water down a water slide. The words of disapproval, they are the ones that sink deep into my gaping wound. The one I can't see. The one I can never talk about. The one that made me deaf and dumb.

So I grope in the dark trying to find the light switch, but I fear I may just have to cry out, because I feel helpless. I have to risk the threats made to me when I was too young to speak. God help me.