One thing that’s so hard to forget is seeing the sparkle in someone’s eyes when they inflict harm on you. It’s almost inconceivable so you blame yourself for their actions and stay. Because when you’ve been indoctrinated to be ashamed of your own existence, you end up begging for love from all the wrong people. By wrong people- I mean the ones who will happily push you till you fall and kick you when you’re down on the ground while playing the victim to anyone who will listen.
The two main people who did this were my mother and stepfather’s girlfriend. After my mother and stepfather got divorced, he met Gina, a prostitute sleeping on her pimp’s couch. She had sob stories and I have a weakness for them, so I did what I thought was the right thing at that time. I talked my dad into letting her move into his home. I don’t have many regrets in life- this is one of them.
My BIL also played a considerable role in this, but for now, I’m going to stick to my mother and step father’s girlfriend.
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They did whatever they could to turn people against me- family, friends, family friends, even people I didn’t know. Both my dad (really my stepfather but he raised me) and twin sister turned their backs on me. He’s since passed away, under really suspicious circumstances. As for my sister- our relationship is beyond the point of repair. It never stood a chance.
My mother and Gina’s hope for me was to die. I know because they told me. I even attempted suicide and struggled with suicide ideation for about 11 years.
The battles I had to fight to stay alive– it’s not something I would ever wish upon anyone. But I’m also at the point that if they were placed in the shoes they made me wear, I wouldn’t sacrifice myself again.
The irony is what was supposed to be my death ended up being my rebirth. The following is what I’ve learned being the family scapegoat and what I did to win a war I didn’t know I was fighting.
SIT WITH THE UNIVERSE/GOD
Their goal is to isolate you and to be utterly hopeless without anyone to turn to. It’s scary- to feel so alone in a world with so many people, like no one has your back and are even out to get you. You can’t help but question where you went wrong in life, what made people hate you so much.
I used to look at the periods of solitude as a form of punishment until I realized that it was protection. So I sat with the Universe/God. And it was such a beautiful experience. It still is. I wouldn’t trade these moments for anything.
So take the isolation as a blessing. You can begin to unravel from the cognitive dissonance and heal. You really learn who you are in the quiet moments when no one else is around.
Use this time to pray for guidance and find inner peace. Ask for courage and strength to ride through the storms. Ask for heightened intuition so you can see with stark clarity. Anything you want, ask for it. You’re being guided every step of the way.
DON’T BE SCARED OF THEM
This one’s hard because you feel so disempowered and weak. How can you not be scared of them? Especially the lengths they were willing to go to just to destroy you.
Here’s the thing- they’re scared of you. That’s why they started attacking you in the first place. If you were as weak and fragile as they made you to be, why bother attacking you? Why not just leave you alone to live an uneventful life?
Because you have something they don’t have and they want it. So they do everything in their power to swap destinies, hoping you won’t awaken to who’s really the one that’s in control.
They’re also the ones who have everything to lose when you have nothing to lose. You’ve endured character assassinations, smear campaigns, gang stalking, possibly dragged into the legal system, maybe have had hexes placed on you, had your finances stolen. You lost everything, including your dignity. They made sure of it.
Yet, you somehow managed to come out on the other side. You can also expose every single one of them when you’re healed. Yes- you’re the one that’s in power and control. Own it and use it wisely.
STAY SILENT
When I look back at all the times I fought back, I looked, well, not too sane. It was when I didn’t know how to stand up for myself sober. So I used alcohol as liquid courage and the moxie would come out in full strength. But I also wouldn’t change it. Because that drunk version of me defended me in ways the sober me didn’t know how. However, I would have approached it in a more methodical manner if I had a do over.
I know it’s hard to stay silent. That’s why I lashed out when I did because all you want is to be heard. And you will when the time is right. If you’re just coming to terms with who they are, stay silent. It’s the absolute best thing you can do for yourself until you can make sense of things and come into a place of being so healed, that they have no power over your emotional wellbeing.
If it’s any consolation, they don’t know how to speak without lying. So let them talk. They will be the reason for their own undoing and will eventually end up drowning in their own depravity. No one escapes karma– you’ll get your restitution and they’ll get their reckoning.
TRUST YOUR INTUITION
I can’t tell you how many times I defied my own inner voice because I felt bad and wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. Not anymore. I no longer need proof because I don’t want to stick around and wait to be proven wrong like every other time.
Just because we can’t explain a weird feeling or a silent scream, it doesn’t mean we should dismiss it. Part of us reclaiming our sovereignty is learning to trust ourselves, including those gentle and sometimes, not so gentle nudges. Your intuition is always guiding you to your highest timeline. You just have to allow those faint whispers to be your yellow brick road. Listen to it. You’ll never be disappointed in trusting yourself.
VALIDATE YOURSELF
The people I kept turning to either flat out dismissed me, made me feel like I should have been more grateful for the abuse or were enabling it. And the more people didn’t listen to or believe me, the crazier I felt. Until I realized that it was never about them. It was always about me- in the sense that I needed to listen to myself, to comfort myself and really hear what I had to say.
We so badly just want someone to hear us to understand us, to validate us. Be that for yourself. Sometimes we’re all we’ve got. So take the time to listen to yourself. Let yourself be the shoulder you cry on. This is going to help you to build an immunity to manipulation.
As for everyone who turned a blind eye on you, let them be. Focus on your growth and you’ll get to a point where you realize they were never people you wanted to know. Your opinion of yourself matters so much more than anyone else’s. It’s hard getting there because you’ve been betrayed and possibly back stabbed, but you will get there. Just keep feeling what you need to feel.
IT IS PERSONAL
I’ve never understood how when you’re speaking to someone about what you’ve been through and they respond with, “Don’t take it personally.” I’m not sure if they actually believe it or they’re just parroting the status quo, or maybe a combination of both. Because it is personal.
People go out of their way to create smear campaigns just to tarnish your reputation.
Some of these lies are so ridiculous that you wonder how anyone could actually believe it. But there’s people out there that do. And they disrespect you based on what they’ve heard about you. You try speaking up for yourself but it falls upon deaf ears so you need to sit back and bide your time until you’re strong enough to not care what they think.
That’s as personal as it gets. So make your comeback personal. Not as a f*ck you to those who intentionally harmed you (though, you could), but as an apology to yourself for tolerating the disrespect and as a celebration of the person you’re becoming. Give yourself the world because you deserve it.
FIGHT FOR THE LIFE YOU WANT
The people who defiled and dehumanized you along with the ones who enabled them are never going to see your worth. It’s a painful truth, but we have to learn how to hate the truth rather than love a lie. In the rare chance they do apologize, there will be an ulterior motive behind the apology. So, don’t fight a lost cause. It’s just not worth it.
But you’re worth your own fight. Fight for everything you daydream about. Heal so you can build an inner empire. Learn who you are so you can create an indestructible foundation. Find what sets your soul on fire so you can chase your dreams with wild, passionate abandon. Fight for yourself.
STOP OVERLOOKING
The things these people do aren’t quirks and idiosyncrasies that make their nuances endearing. These are moral deficiencies that probably won’t change. They think their unconscionable actions are inconsequential and will stop at nothing until they eviscerate you.
By the time you walk away, you’ve been stripped of all your worth and are hanging by a sliver of self-respect, which has been so shattered that it’s almost not worth it to carry with you. So, if you need to replay the bad memories on a loop to reinforce that their apologies aren’t actually apologies but rather a ploy to reel you back in, please keep playing them.
And if you’re in a place where you’re able to forgive them, please don’t complicate it. All it means is that you do not harbor ill will towards anyone who’s harmed you. It does not mean that you allow them back in your life. You can love from a distance- it keeps you safe and alive.
If you’ve dealt with this, my heart goes out to you. It isn’t easy to overcome but it’s also so worth it to come out on the other side. Remember this- if you don’t give up, you cannot fail. So change the relationship you have with yourself and start loving the pieces of you that you think aren’t worthy. You got this.
I’ll see you soon…in the meantime, love yourself so much that even a Hallmark Christmas movie would be jealous.
