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{"id":1928,"date":"2016-09-20T19:52:44","date_gmt":"2016-09-21T00:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughbrokenroses\/?p=1928"},"modified":"2016-09-21T12:32:29","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T17:32:29","slug":"when-did-i-lose-myself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughbrokenroses\/2016\/09\/20\/when-did-i-lose-myself\/","title":{"rendered":"When Did I Lose Myself?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"baby-203048_640\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

She has a sense of humor that seems like it belongs to a thirty year old. Some of the things she says makes me wonder if she will grow up to be a stand up comedian. She says bad words but she puts them in all the right context. I\u2019m not sure if she needs to be put in a corner or given a hi-5 for using them properly!<\/p>\n

At my uncle\u2019s funeral everyone who knew me when I was 3 years old said that Aaliyah was exactly like me at that age. She wasn\u2019t scared of anyone and talked all the time. I still talk all the time, it\u2019s why I can do my homework while tweeting and Facebooking. It\u2019s all just talking really.<\/p>\n

My therapist told me to think of myself as a little child one day when we were working on some old memories and the picture that came into my mind was a little girl that looked just like Aaliyah.<\/p>\n

As I watched her playing today I realized that she is the age that I was when I felt safest in the world. I remember it too. The feeling of being taken care of and loved. Of having people look at me the way that I look at her with nothing but awe. I knew that I was loved then. As I watched her play I began to wonder when that changed. For a long time, I thought that it changed when I was molested at 5 years old, but the truth is that I had no clue at all that anything bad was happening to me when that happened. I had nothing to compare it to. I was too little to know what it was or how to feel about it.<\/p>\n

When I started to feel unsafe was when I began to feel like I could never behave the way that I was supposed to. When I was told by my mother what a bad child I was. I was always in trouble but at some point I began to understand the words being said to me as I got my spanking. I understood that I was being told that I was bad, a disgrace and stupid. Then I got to school and I was told that I was ugly, weird and made fun of for not having a dad.<\/p>\n

When I was 5 I pretended to be blind so that the kids would be nice to me instead of make fun of the fact that I talked funny since I was learning English. In the second or third grade I told everyone that Kenny Rogers was my dad so they would all stop laughing and pointing at me for not having one. I got busted and then my mom called me a liar. When I told her about the sexual abuse, that is what she called me and when Manuel said I was lying it was easy for her to think that since I lied all the time.<\/p>\n

That is when I started to realize that there was hurt in being myself. If I was myself, I would get in trouble, made fun of, and it would all end with me getting my ass beat with a belt. That is when I learned that being someone else was much safer. If you are prepared for heartache then it\u2019s not surprising.<\/p>\n

I have never felt pretty, safe or lovable. Until I became Catholic and encountered Christ. I still didn\u2019t feel any of those things but I felt like I had a shot at my happily ever after. When that didn\u2019t happen I began to think that not even Jesus could love me or help me. Then I started therapy.<\/p>\n

I started peeling back all the layers of myself to try and see exactly who I am and when did I lose myself. Today when I sat in my husband\u2019s chair rocking Aaliyah and giggling with her, I remembered. I remembered what it felt like to be as little as she is and feel safe. As I looked at her face I realized that I am back there. I don\u2019t know who or when it happened, but I am safe again. I didn\u2019t find myself, God found me. He knew that I needed to see it with my own eyes to get it so He brought this beautiful little soul into our family. He thinks of everything.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"