I've read many posts and comments where someone has professed having been an alcoholic, have used drugs, made it through the most wicked war Viet Nam, and still are valid people. What they say, what they do, counts and they remain Valid.
What happens when that great struggle is not due to alcoholism, drugs - or drug addictions, or even due to a foreign war. What if that struggle comes from within a person? You can tell me when I finished with this if this person is valid or not.
I'm going to be very bold with things that are very private and personal to me, and have kept them that way for many many years. I don't know why, but am compelled to do this.
Starting first at the age of two yrs. old. I developed a blood allergy that closed my throat over the period of 2 days, suffocating slowly. Blue and mottled I was finally taken to the Emergency Room, where I'm told I slipped into a clinical death. A Doctor happened by that acted spontaneously at that moment, and had 4 nuns hold down my arms and legs while he cut open my throat into my airway. I'm told I fought heavy against them all, and for being so little they could hardly hold me. After having inserted the bottom barrel of an ink pen, I began to breath again. I was sent to surgery. Would there be brain damage in such a small brain having lacked sufficient air- as I did? I was to young for anyone to tell.
Thank goodness I can't remember that, but my subconscious did.
Through time, my Mother- having been the only child of two viscious, and physically fighting alcholics, plus molested and raped for many years by an uncle that lived there as well, succumbed to having many marriages, one after the other, after the other.
I got tired of that as she used Church as her babysitter as my sisters and I grew. The thing is that I believed everything I learned in Church.
At 11 yrs. old, and very involved in church, plus growing up in a family of women, I got up one night to get a drink of water and passing by my mothers bedroom, the door was wide open and I saw a stranger, a man, completely naked standing in her room. I was mortified. My mother told me to just go back to bed.
I got tired of that, very confused, and left my mother and sisters to live with my biological Dad. He had given my sisters and I up for adoption to a step-dad, to get out of child support, but none the less, he was Dad.
He was a very active alcoholic, and used drugs as well. He was also a very angry person and physically, mentally, abusive to me.
At times, I would get spanked across his knee (at 13-14 yrs. old) with back scrubbers, belts, and gun belts. I always had to undress down to my underwear. His favorite was his gun-belt to his pearl handled revolver.
He would tell me that my Mother hated me, and wished I were dead. He would hide any mail to me sent from my Mother.
Finally, one afternoon, I had cut one period of school to be with my boyfriend (we were not sexually involved), as he was going out of state for a while.
My dad found out, and when I got home from school his gunbelt was wetted and wound up on the couch. My dad sat in front of me and told me to take off all my clothes and underclothes. I said "No" I won't do that. He stood up in front of me, and without seeing it coming- he punched me very hard in the left temple, sending me across the room. He demanded I take off my pants and underwear or get it again, and in total shame I did. Then he made me lay across his knees for the beating. He order me to go to bed, and I don't remember much from there as he hit me so hard with his fist, he fractured my 13 yr. old skull on the left temple side.
I went to school the next day but had a hard time staying awake. I went to my school counselor and reported the beatings I received at home. He told me to go back to class and he would take care of it. Once I walked in the house, my dad was in the kitchen and grabbed the kitchen phone. He said that if I wanted to call the police on him, that I could, but he would beat me within an inch of my life so that he would be in jail for a reason. Then he threw the phone at me. I couldn't think or feel anything by then, just numb. The next day in school, I requested to see my counselor again, but was informed I had been given a new counselor (this is on school record). I was alone, with no help, and I was very nauseated.
My boyfriend having come back, and knowing what my home-life was like; he and his mother invited me to live with them.
After the first year, I was pregnant, and by 16 years old, we married. Both of us still minors we had to get permission from a judge to marry, which we did.
When 18 yrs. old, we were expecting our second child. Our first was a beautiful boy. At eight months pregnant, my husband said to me "I shouldn't have gotten married." In a silent numb blur of gathering his clothes, he left us.
My mother came to stay with my son and I, to help with the new baby. It was a boy, born on his daddy's birthday so I named him after his Dad. When the baby was six weeks old, my husband came home to us.
At 3 months and 14 days, I found my new baby passed away in his crib from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. My heart and mind died, until I found I was already 5 weeks pregnant again. I was elated.
We had another baby boy. My husband moved his brother and his new wife in with us, as his brother did not have a job.
When my new baby was 4 months old, My sons and I spent Christmas with my Mother In Law, who felt the need to tell me that while my husband and I were separated, my husband was having an affair with someone else. Someone else who went to the hospital to see my second son when he was born- with my husband. Someone else who had eventually married his brother, and was now living in my own home. Someone whom I become good friends in my ignorance.
In all the confusion, beatings, betrayals, deciept, and having my heart mortally wounded by losing that child under those circumstances, my mind began to buckle on 1/2/77. I felt such a heavy force within me, making me unable to breath. I felt that all gravity had left me, and that I would fly off into outerspace- that empty void.
I was admitted to a psychiatric unit, speaking with a different language no one could comprehend, not even me. I kept crying for Jesus inside of me to make it end, but there seemed no end within me. My head hurt so very bad.
After 6 weeks of being locked away, I was finally able to say my own name, correctly. I was able to put together small sentences understandably.
I was finally on the road to a year long recovery.
After Counseling and Therapy to understand why people do the things they do, and realizing I had absolutely no coping skills for life, I had to learn what they are, and even harder, implement them into my person. I wrote many letters to my self, rereading them to understand my many false and weaknesses, and work to improve on them.
Then, I went to the Holy Bible and found the verse: ''For God hath not given you a Spirit of Fear, but of Power, and of Love, and of a Sound Mind."
I knew then that the rest of my healing was in the Lord's hands, helping me to learn Truth- according to his Word, his foundation of what is Right, and what is Wrong.
So, after almost 4 decades since that terrible crisis in my life, and the way it took place:
If you were to meet me in person, would you be afraid of me, accept me as an individual like yourself, consider me
A Valid Person to society?
When my husband and I had our Wedding Ceremony, the theme song, and at the reception afterwards was "Knights in White Satin," by the Moody Blues. Go figure~
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=nights+in+white+satin&qpvt=knights+in+white+satin&FORM=VDRE