"The challenge is not to forgive and forget. The real honor comes in one's ability to forgive and yet remember." ~Anonymous
Family enmeshment is nasty- it feels very much like the way Venom is visually depicted in Spider-man 3. Peter Parker is in the church tower, praying to rid himself of something that he previously mistook for being good. He has come to realize that while it is bad, it is something that he will never be rid of unless the demon creature can find a new host. Unmoved by the knowledge that he must find a new host, he knows in his heart that the only way to truly be happy and to find true love is if he tears asunder the slime that has defined who he is. As someone who has worked through the enmeshment entanglement dilemma, that is the most powerful visual scene I have ever witnessed on enmeshment. The exertion on the part of Peter to rid himself of Venom is exactly the amount of work that one who desires to be free from enmeshment looks and feels like. Very powerful.
Yet still there remains a scar. A scar that no one can fully understand, or maybe that you can fully articulate. Leaving and rejecting one's family of origin is certainly not for cowards. It's also something that most just can't grapple with or begin to understand. How can Dispelled Girl hate her family so much? How could she do this to her parents? What was so bad that she just can't move on?
Sigh. I struggle with the same questions. I want healing, healing in my own life and healing in the lives of my perpetrating parents. I am not one who likes to quote other's work and thoughts mostly because I want everything that I say in here to be original and true to myself. But here is a quote from a powerful book that gripped me and helped me to heal from the incest in my family. And it sums up my heart completely.
That sadly has been the pattern of our family's history for the last ten years, ever since I brought the issues of the past forward and asked my parents to enter into therapeutic family counseling. Whenever I have brought my issues of abuse forward their response has increasingly gotten more and more defensive. Right now, my parents are livid that I have "smeared" their reputation because of the sexual abuse that I endured from the ages of 2-5. They have no desire to admit their wrongdoing in this. What their desire is, is to defend their actions and suggest that I have ten horns on my head. Their response has been nothing but defensiveness.
If, during one of our many sessions, they had been repentant and shown to me that they desired a true heart change- a desire to restore the past- then they would have been met with the open arms of a little girl who has never wanted anything more than for her parents to truly accept and love her. But rather, for the last ten years, I have been met with this sick psychological mind game called, "Not My Perspective." They attest that their perspective is different and because its different, they are right. I don't doubt for one second that their perspective is different. The perpetrators perspective is always different from that of the victim. But what they have not done is take 100% of the responsibility for what happened in their home, or listen and hear my hurt and heart.
So for the last nine years, I have been caught in the muck of just wanting them to accept me. So I would stuff my feelings and re-enter into a boundary-less relationship with them, in which the same old patterns of relating would appear once again. Then would begin my downward spiral of having to cope, enter into extensive counseling, and remembering the pain of the past. I finally realized about a year ago that I don't need them in my life to be a whole person. They were my world. I was sheltered and because of my relationship to the perpetrators I had become victim to Stockholm Syndrome. It was very hard for me to admit that they had done the things that they had done to me. But once I crossed over that threshold, I was starting to taste the sweetness of freedom. And I kept on going.
Long story short, I finally realized that I was worthy- worthy enough to not let someone else treat me this way! Worthy enough to be free to love and not feel judged. Worthy enough to experience freedom, rest, and healing. And finally, worthy enough to stand up against the abuse.
If my mom and dad never recognize or admit what they have done to me, it no longer matters. What does matter is that if they want a relationship with me, they will have to admit what they have done, their need for my forgiveness, and their need to accept that they need healing too. And until that happens I just can't know them or be in their life.
Yes it makes me sad. The holidays are upon us and for the first time in my life, I won't be celebrating them with my parents. It makes me sad that they want to file a lawsuit against me. It makes me sad that they claim to be Christians and yet there is no fruit in their family of it. It makes me even sadder that the church in which they are both full-time employees of, has refused to listen to the victim or make them deal openly and honestly with their issues. Instead, they have hid it under the rug to "protect the church from scandal."
Ravi Zacharias said recently, "We have reached the point in our culture where the culture sides with the perpetrator over the victim."
So to those of you victims out there who are still dealing with the past abuse and past hurts let me just say, I am so very proud of you. It takes a tremendous amount of courage and strength to do so. And more than anything, let me say this: You are beautiful and you are worthy of being free from the clutches of your abuse.
