It doesn't matter.

Does it? I always thought it did but I'm beginning to think otherwise.

My bonus daughter says this phrase a lot. Mostly to make herself feel better about an otherwise irritating situation. The kids are in the habit of calling "shotgun" when we get in the car. It's an easier way for them to "take turns" than to keep track of who sat where last. When she forgets to call it, even though you can see she's mad about it, she says, "It doesn't matter." And then she lets it go.

I usually get so angry when someone lies about me. I worry about what people think about me, especially if their perspective about me is off. I fight for the truth to be known and will argue and push until the other person sees it.

But hearing my bonus daughter vocalize that phrase repeatedly over the past month has changed my view on things.

I love honesty. I love truth. I love simplicity and peace.

I found out this past weekend, (a lot I already knew), that another person has been bad-mouthing me and telling lies about me and my mom. She has emailed and called other family members repeatedly spewing trash from her mouth. My family welcomed me with open arms despite her attempts to destroy those relationships. Each one of my aunts and uncles told me not to worry about it. They are tired of hearing from her. Tired of her lies and complaining. Angry by the fact that a person would do that to another family member.

"It doesn't matter."

My uncle told me that one reason nobody believes her or even wants to listen to her is because they know who I am and who she is. It is my character that speaks for me. And hers for her. It has never been me that has bad mouthed her or gone to other family members and spoken ugly things about her. Yet since we were young, it has been her that has stirred up drama, talked bad about each of her family members, and told lie after lie. And in light of the events of the past 2 years, they are disgusted that she would stoop to the level she has.

"It doesn't matter."

I have held my tongue through the worst because it doesn't matter.

I have turned the other cheek time and again because it doesn't matter.

There is only ONE that matters. God. We should be concerned about what He thinks about us. We should care how He sees us.

NOBODY ELSE MATTERS.

I have learned that when I let things go and don't try and "fix" it on my own ~ the truth comes out. It may take a month. It may take a year. It may take a decade.
But it does come out.

Does it really matter what lies are told about me? Does it really matter what people believe about me? Does it really matter how someone else sees me?

Honestly? NO. If I just keep living my life and letting the unnecessary things go ~ The TRUTH will come out.

It's been proven over and over in my life. And it's taken me this long to realize it.

Backing down to confrontation doesn't mean you are giving up.

Not fighting back doesn't mean that you know the other person is right and that you're wrong.

Being assertive isn't about fighting back and responding.

Sometimes standing up for yourself and standing up for the truth means that you have to close your mouth and turn and walk away.

The rest will take care of itself. It doesn't matter ~ let it go.

I began a writing workshop for survivors.

One: I love to write
Two: It was something I could do just for me

My advocate is the leader for the group. I love her. She's been with me since the beginning of this mess and has helped me through in so many ways.

We started out with three lists of 5: Things I feel right now, Things I have anxiety about, Things about writing that scare me. As I was making my columns, I was thinking how easy this was going to be. Then I started writing. Not as easy as I thought. I could only come up with 4 things in each column and the last 3 things in each column were squeezed out of my head along with blood and sweat. We went on to do other exercises where our creativity was allowed to flow.

Blank pages give me anxiety. They just seem to stare at me and taunt me.

We finished with one of the exercises and began discussing it. One of the women spoke up about how she had a hard time with letting her thoughts flow and somehow ended up on the subject of confrontation. She had just had to deal with a stalker and reporting him to the police. It was the first time she'd felt strong in her life. The first time she'd stood up for herself. It made her want to pen a letter to her abuser because she felt she could finally confront him. If only on paper.

While I applauded her desire to confront him, I was also worried about it. Rarely, when confronted, will the abuser admit to any wrong doing or apologize. Even if they've openly admitted guilt in court or to their families, it is just a formality. Inside, they still take no responsibility. Everything that goes wrong or has gone wrong, including the abuse, is always someone else's fault. Even after being in treatment for years and years, no change will have taken place inside.

I sat there remembering the countless times I had confronted my abuser and told him exactly how I felt. Not just recently. Beginning all the way back to 1990. He totally disregarded me and more lies came. Lies that placed the blame on me, lies that made my anger with him about something else. Lies that turned my step-mom against me because he made her believe I was the problem. Her and I have talked so much these past couple years now. Both of our eyes have been opened and we see everything so clear now. These lies not only destroyed our relationship but I had to turn my back on him. I had nothing to do with him for years because his abuse continued ~ emotional, psychological. It was the only way I could protect myself from any more pain.

I confronted him almost 10 years later. This time he apologized. But then more lies came. Lies and deceit. Though this time, they wouldn't become clear or be discovered for almost another decade.

Once this mess began, I started on the side of being compassionate and understanding. After all, I HAD forgiven him. It wasn't something I was going to take back. I told him that repeatedly. I don't hold the abuse against him at all. I wrote him about how I loved him and how we could get through this together. See, even though I had talked to the police and given them evidence against him, I was still determined to be there to help him through.
This phase lasted for 5 months. Not once did he ever acknowledge how I felt. Never once did he validate my pain or fears or feelings. I then visited him along with my brother. The visit went good. I still felt like we could make it through.

I decided to visit him by myself. A decision that sent me reeling and hindered my progress in therapy. He took full advantage of me being alone and began playing his mind games. He continued what he'd been saying to me through letters those months but added onto it.
He had the nerve to sit there and tell me that HE was the victim in all of this and actually asked me if I wanted to trade places. He told me how miserable he was and that if I hadn't talked to the cops, he wouldn't be sitting there. He actually told me that all I had to do to fix it was talk to the cops and take my statement back. That it was up to me and as soon as I left there, I needed to make the phone call. His wife was thinking about leaving him. This he blamed on me, my sister and my brother. That if we hadn't been such brats and been so mean to her all these years that she wouldn't be thinking about divorcing him now. Her love for him had died because of us~ nothing he had done. He blamed me and the other girls he had violated. Since when are children to blame for sexual abuse? He sat there and complained about my mom and how all of this was her fault and how my sister was just like her. He said things about my sister and the life she'd lived and then blamed my mom that she was still alive because he should've let her die instead of reviving her when she almost died of SIDS. He blamed the police and everyone he'd ever come into contact with for his situation. Then he came back and started in on me again. I couldn't breathe. I felt like I was going to vomit. I was scared to death but couldn't move. I wanted to run. I wanted to scream. But I was glued to that chair.

I left that day and drove the long trip home bawling my eyes out. I don’t even know how I got home.

During the months that led up to his sentencing, I wrote him several times. Telling him in detail how I felt, what I needed from him, what I thought. But he continued to deny responsibility, to lie, to blame those around him. It was then that I knew I had to take him out of my life. I was trying to heal and all his actions were hindering that. It wasn't just me he was doing it to. It was our entire family. Though not everyone could or can see it.

I stopped all contact with him. He was released in October 2008. Never once did he try and contact me. I felt strongly that I was supposed to call him on Thanksgiving. So I did. I gave him yet another opportunity. He ignored it and acted as though nothing had happened and went on to tell me how miserable his life was and blah, blah, blah. Not once since then has he made any effort. Not once. Recently I found out that he still blames my mother. He still blames me. Really. All of this came about because of everyone else and nothing you did?

My step-mom, along with many others, told me recently that I have made every effort to reconcile and it is no longer my responsibility. That I've given him more than enough chances and every time he has spit in my face. She told me that I need to come to grips with the fact that he will probably die without making peace with me. She said that God gave him chance after chance and he never took advantage of those, either. God heard my cries all these years for healing, for peace and in His time…..answered those prayers.

My letters of confrontation are over. My days of being controlled by mind games are done. However, the deception lives on because there are still ears that want to listen.

But not mine.

It's almost the end of the quarter ~ next Friday! I feel SO good about what I've accomplished my first quarter in school. I have straight A's. I was pretty nervous about going back after 20 years. After all, in high school, I passed most of my classes with D's. I got A's in German, Art, and my writing classes….but the rest, I just didn't care about. That stemmed from feeling I was just not worth it after being sexually abused from age 10 on.

Being sexually abused changes everything about your world.

EVERYTHING.

I went from an outgoing little girl, who was always happy and laughing, and had tons of friends to a sad, angry little girl who withdrew from everyone and trusted no one. I remember my life before the abuse. FUN. Carefree. Trusting. Curious about the world. Loved playing with my friends. Loved my family. Slept peacefully at night. I often wonder who I would've become had I not experienced the violence and pain of the abuse.

I turned into a girl who trusted no one and hated lies. After all, I had trusted one of the first people I had ever known and loved unconditionally…and he hurt me beyond words. He would tell me he loved me ~ and then abuse me. He would tell me I could trust him ~ then betray that trust. He would tell me it was over and he wouldn't hurt me any more ~ but it went on for over 5 years. I stopped believing everyone in my world ~ except Grandma. To this day, if I'm lied to, I get angry. I get the same feelings I had when I was little. If a person destroys my trust, they rarely get it back. It's my way of protecting myself. Everyone tells white lies. "Those pants look great on you." Not the lies I'm talking about. Major lies ~ lies that destroy, that hurt~ are unacceptable. What's the motive behind the lie? It truly shows a person's character when they lie and think nothing about the way it can destroy the person they're lying to or about.

I grew up feeling I wasn't worthy of anything good. That I didn't deserve to be happy. I still struggle with this one sometimes. I'm afraid to be too happy because I feel that God will rip it away from me. With the help of the therapy, I've come to learn that I AM worthy, I AM precious, I AM deserving. I do things for myself now that I would never had dreamed of doing. I let others serve me ~ an idea that used to make me nauseous and uncomfortable. I am currently the happiest I've ever been in my life and I make it a point to name my blessings everyday. I can't believe how much GOOD is in my life. I can't believe how CONTENT I am even when there's turmoil around me.

August 2007 until October of 2008…THE worst time in my entire life, aside from the abuse. My abuser was being investigated based on some other reports, and through a letter I had written to him years earlier, my abuse had been found out. It started a storm I thought would overtake and kill me. I had put the abuse and everything associated with it into a room and bolted the door. Suddenly, I was being forced into facing it head-on. There's no way to even begin to describe the hell I went through on a daily basis. Fear, nightmares, insomnia, guilt, flashbacks…and that's just the tip of the iceberg. There were periods of time I actually thought I was going to die. Times where I wanted to die. Times I felt as if I was already dead. The pain was unbearable. The entire process from interviewing, to sentencing, to his release took me on a trip through hell that I am thankful for even now.

I was allowed to break my silence. I no longer live in fear that nobody will believe me or that he will come back for me. Everything was brought to the light and out in the open and it FREED me.

I AM FREE!

My abuser still has his demons to wrestle with. He still has to confront himself in the mirror and deal with what he has done. Now HE is the one that must live with the same feelings I lived with all these years. It's his turn. I thought that now it's all said and done that somewhere along this path, we could reconcile. That he would realize the magnitude of pain and destruction he brought not only to my life, but to our entire family. But no. I heard the other day that he still blames my mom for what he did. (How does that work?) And he still blames me. After all, I'm the one who told my story to the police. I'm the reason he sat in jail for a year. (Never mind that he got off with a hand slap for Criminal Sexual Conduct in the 1st and 2nd degree) I'm the one that turned my back on him. (Forget how he destroyed the life of a child and stole my innocence.) I've come to accept the fact that I will probably never to speak to him again or have any kind of relationship with him. And I'm fine with that…………………because I'm FREE.

What I don't understand, however, is the fact that my sister turned her back on me. She continues to tell lies about me to other family members. She continues to try and destroy my character. This has gone on our entire lives. It's actually nothing new. But she chose the time during which I was struggling with these demons to not only kick me down and repeatedly stab me, but turn around and play the innocent victim and lie about why we no longer have contact. Who does that to family? Who does that to anyone? I don't fight back, yet she continues. She reminds me of Gollum ~ stroking her "Precious". I know my abuser plays a part in it. His bitterness has rubbed off onto her and she believes everything he says since she is so desperate for his love and attention. It has been like that since we were little. It's so sad.

I will never let her back into my life. Not after taking years of lies and her trying to destroy my life. I've let both of them go.

I've grieved for the loss.

I've moved on.

There are many things I do not understand. And I'm fine with that. We're not meant to understand everything ~ that's where faith steps in. But there are those things that are just unacceptable.

Lying, for example. Especially lying about a child to make gains for yourself or to make yourself look like the "injured" party. What is that teaching the child? It's ok to lie if you're an adult? It's ok to lie if you need to make someone look bad? It's ok to lie so you can get ahead? Have you ever stopped and thought about the volumes your actions speak about your character? Nothing you can do or say after that will ever erase the picture someone has now created of you and the person you are. And even if the people around you believe the lies you've said at that time, does it really matter? Because the One that REALLY matters, already knows the truth. God has seen what you've done to that child. He has heard the lies you've told. He has seen your heart and known your motives for wanting to hurt that child with your lies.

Lies. I hate lies. I hate being lied to. I hate being lied about. I would never dream of lying about anyone in my family to make myself look better or to make others turn on another family member. So why is it that you feel compelled to do so? What are you hoping to gain?

After what I've lived through most of my life but especially the past couple years, you'd think that you would be happy for me. Overjoyed that FINALLY I'm able to get justice, to find peace, to start healing. And yet at the peak of it all, when it was the most painful, you chose that time to knock me down even further. To turn your back on me and continue stabbing. Why? And then you turn around and tell lie on top of lie and blame this and that on me. When I've sat here for the past year and those before, doing absolutely nothing to you. I'm not fighting back and yet you keep swinging. In going through all my therapy and my support groups, I've learned to deal with the past and I've healed a great deal of the wounds. NOTHING you can do or say, can reopen them. I've learned to ignore you. I've let you go. I've let him go, too.

You can continue to attack me. Continue to lie about me. Continue to try and rip apart my relationships with my family. Continue to tear apart my character. Say what you want. I keep hearing about it.

I DON'T CARE. God brought this to the light. He has given me the justice and brought my healing. Nothing either of you do, can change that. Nothing either of you say can steal it away. NOTHING. When will it get through to you?

I hope you're prepared for when it all falls in on you. What you give out always comes back to you...whether it was good or bad.

I had high hopes when Daughter came home to stay. I held tight to the hope that she would put to use all she had learned, that as a family we would be healed. Those hopes were crushed and destroyed. Several times in the past month.

Things were going so well. I should've known. I should've seen it coming. But love is blind, is it not? Love bears all things. Love believes all things. Love hopes and endures all things. That is what scripture tells us. That's what I know and believe. As a mom, Love is what I DO.

I have to say I am impressed with the change in her. She is not defiant or angry. She does her chores...though it's usually on her time, not mine. But they get done. When something is bothering her, she is able to sit down with one of us and talk about it and even ask for input. She's often thinking of others and not focused on herself anymore. There is so much good in her and about her now. There always was but somewhere along the way, she lost it. No. It was stolen from her by a demon. A demon known as Depression. He stole so much from her, from her life, from us.

So while many things are very good.......there are still things that are terribly wrong. I'm standing at a place where I need to make a major decision...yet again. I am constantly wrestling with the decision day after day. It's tearing my heart apart. I don't want to make a mistake.

Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.

I gave the last decision to Him. I leaned on Him even though I didn't understand or even know if I was doing what I should be. I trusted Daughter to Him and everything turned out right. This time is different. This time is harder. This time.....feels permanent. I feel as though I've lost my daughter.

The only thing that gives me hope is the scripture:

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

I have the promise that all I've put into her heart and her mind is still there, sprouting like a seedling. I have taught her everyday of her life how to behave, how a lady acts, how to treat others, to trust in God, that she has a purpose here. It started the first time I held her in my arms and has not stopped. If you had the time to sit with her, she could tell you almost word for word, everything I've placed in her heart. She KNOWS.

Right now she is doing things "her" way. The opposite of all I've instilled in her, of course. But one day....one day, she will come back around. I have that promise. God doesn't break His promises.

Monday marks the beginning of another chapter in our lives. Daughter is beginning her transition home after living apart from us for the past year. So let's start from the beginning...or somewhere kind of close.

My daughter will be 17 in a few months. She's always been an exhausting child. What I mean is, always demanding attention, constantly on the move, a total energy vampire. At the same time, she's a total ray of sunshine ~ laughing, brightening up the room and bringing unique ideas to the table. I noticed a change in her behavior starting in 5th grade. I KNEW something was different, but I just couldn't put my finger on it. I attributed it to her age and the onset of puberty.

I kept this opinion throughout her 5th grade year while I tried different discipline tactics, tried to keep her engaged in activities and went bald on 1/3 of my head from pulling my hair out. Somewhere between 5th and 6th grade, almost overnight, she began stealing, lying, grades began dropping. My once happy child suddenly became defiant and hateful. Never happy about anything. I felt like such a failure as a parent.

Knowing something was wrong with her and having grown up with a Bipolar sister, I took her in for a professional opinion. The diagnosis was anxiety and mild OCD. I chalked it up as a bunch of bull and left. After all, how he could come up with that after only spending 10 minutes talking to her blew my mind.

Things got progressively worse to the point that I just wanted to send her to live with her Dad. I was exhausted and out of options. At the end of her 7th grade year, I noticed several cuts on her wrist that clearly weren't any kind of accident. I questioned her over and over and got no where with her. I went through her room one day and found a suicide threat, some really dark poems she'd written and a few letters to some of her friends discussing her cutting. Needless to say, I freaked out. There's just no other way to put it. I called our family doctor because I had no idea what to do. He suggested taking her to the ER once school was out and explaining what I had seen and found. He said this was the fastest way to get her help because she needed to see a Psychiatrist but the waiting list for those was over 6 months long.

That started a LONG, LONG road to Nowhere Street. Over the next 2 1/2 years, we'd been to 3 psychiatrists all who told me it was me with the problem and she was a perfectly normal teenager. Somehow it was all my fault. We took her to the ER 4 times for suicide threats and notes. They kept her once overnight and a second time for the weekend. I spend countless nights looking for her, calling friends to see if they'd seen her when she wouldn't come home from school or never showed up for curfew. The police were called numerous times to report her as a runaway. She began skipping first a class, then entire days of school. She was getting straight F's even if she was in class. She was so defiant and ugly at home that I'd spend my nights crying my eyes out and praying for a miracle. Her cutting worsened. There were times she cut so deeply that she almost needed stitches. She began self tattooing and piercing herself.
The pain I saw in her eyes was almost enough to kill me. I just had no idea what was wrong, what had gone wrong or how to help her.

Every where I turned for help, I was turned away. She wasn't "bad" enough for services; she was just "lazy"; let her do what she wants, she'll come around; you aren't a good parent; you don't discipline her; you don't show her enough love....I felt like I was jumping through hoops and getting beaten at the same time.

Finally, on our 5th visit to the ER in a year and a half, the male nurse who was helping us told me, "You've been here too many times for this. I can't believe nobody has helped you or looked into this. I'm going to go through your daughter's file and I'm going to get both of you the help she needs." I started crying. FINALLY! Finally somebody was listening to me.

Long story short, we ended up with a social worker from the county to help get her the services she needed, a psychiatrist who placed her in a summer program to test and diagnose her, a family therapist, a personal therapist for her, and an IEP at school. Her diagnosis was ADD, severe depression and anxiety. She was put on medication to help those things. We went on like this for a year with some things getting better, some things worse.

Last year at around this time, I had to call her in as a runaway again when she never showed up after school and I got a phone call from school saying she hadn't been in school all day. None of her friends knew where she was or had seen her. At around 8 pm, I got a tip off from a friend and had the police go and pick her up. It was the deputy that noticed the severe & long cuts on her arm and wrist again. He strongly suggested taking her to ER again and calling her therapist and social worker. They ended up keeping her in the Adolescent Mental Ward for a week while her social worker and I ironed out what to do.

I was given two options: 1) Voluntarily place her in a group home or 2) Wait it out, stay on the same path and wait until it becomes court ordered.
Being at my wits end with her and running out of time to help her straighten out her life (she was a month away from turning 16), I opted to voluntarily place her in a group home an hour and a half from where we lived.

I cried for 3 days straight. I worried about doing the right thing for her. I worried about if she'd be safe. I grieved for the little girl I had lost somewhere along the way. The little girl who had laughed and been silly. The little girl who had worn my high heels around the house and sang worship songs. The little girl I had held in my arms. The little girl who had my heart and soul. I had to believe I was doing the right thing. Had to believe God had a plan I couldn't see & He had in all in control.

The past year has been hard and long. It turns out that it was the right decision. It's been harder for Daughter than for the rest of us. She's done a lot of soul searching and digging. She's learned a lot of hard lessons. She's had to look at herself in a way that's hard for anyone to do.

On Monday, she moves back home during the week and goes back to the group home on the weekends. She'll be finishing off the last quarter of school at her own school. She left with straight F's and is coming back with A's and B's. We are all excited for this chapter to begin and also to close it and start on the next chapter.

She hasn't cut since last August. She laughs and is silly again. She wears my high heels and sings again. Though now the shoes fit and its definitely not worship songs she sings. I hold her in my arms and snuggle with her. OFTEN. We talk, we cry. I'm learning from her everyday.

And that little girl still has my heart and soul...woven tightly in every fiber of her being, held together with tears and laughter and love.