Today I rode the mail route with bits of sadness tagging along...and parts of wonder.
What I have been fighting against is the sentiment that I am unkind.
I am a wild and mental lady, angry and cold-hearted, judgemental and self centered...one who has tossed aside her family for her own personal gain. Gain of what, I am not sure of yet. This image of me I have felt for years coming at me...in concentrated waves of stony silence...rebuffs.
If I could only articulate the feelings of being asaulted by indifference while standing up wounded...you would see the contrasts.
What have I done to deserve this title of unkindness and cruel silences?
In the video you see my brother's wounded heart. His emotions are the feelings of the child who is unseen and unheard. It is also the scene of being heard and being seen. He has an attentive audience.
My mind cannot wrap itself around the fact that we have to educate and teach how to respond to a wounded human being.
And yet, we awkwardly will deal with wounded humans who hurt others by treating them as normal, kind and nice.
Somehow there is something way way off, when the abused is treated like the abuser and the abuser like the abused.
Can you see it?
My greatest sadness today is to feel the wounded child being seen as unkind. Today, I felt and fully embraced my kindness. Can you look in my brother's face and call him unkind?
It is an act of kindness to speak your truth.
It is an act of kindness to break the silence.
It is an act of kindness to feel emotions.
It is an act of kindness to put up barriers against evil.
It is an act of kindness to show the church that their forgiveness doesn't heal the wounded child.
To me, and call me mental, it would be unkind to do the opposite of what I have been trying to do.
My brother and I were both wounded in our childhoods, we are showing our wounds in public. And some are not willing to see them...or God forbid comment on them.
I have had wonderful comments of courage, bravery, wise, etc...all for being real.
Being real is unkind?
Really???
How?
Or, how is it judgmental to point out the silence? Isn't that what the church has done...deflected the wrongdoing on to the abused. How am I more wrong for seeing the silence than those who are silent.
I know I am supposed to find a reasonable reason as to why some turn away...in order to keep them kind. I can't.
Here is what I do know. When I was unaware of my own abuse, I was unaware of others wounds. I was unaware of my hurt, I was hurtful in my blindness.
My favorite detective, Tom Rosemurgy asked me, "What could we have done to get your attention when you were unaware of your abuse?" I still don't have the answers, but I am working towards solutions. I am doing my best to shake, rattle and roll the ironclad beliefs that held me in the dark.
I just don't feel that by me NOT addressing my feelings about the silence would be helpful. The truth being put out there time and time again is the only thing I feel that can poke holes in denial.
Maybe I am only judgmental and unkind to those in denial.
And, if you want to remain in the dark, you don't want to see the wounded.
For once you see the wounded, you see too much.
Here is what I know for sure. I saw my wounded self. I saw the little girl whose love, and trust had been ripped to shredds. Her broken heart. (see my brother's piece) and I fell in love with her.
My heart opened wide for this girl. The one who had been abused by her father. By her father. I held her in my heart.
So each time I am unseen and unheard or turned away from or shrugged off with indifference, it is denial denying me.
It would.
The question is why?
In the past, I thought it was me. I was not kind enough, cute enough, articulate enough, my words were not soft enough or more christian sounding. Now, I know it isn't me.
There simply isn't nothing this wounded adult child can do to make you see.
The video clip does not show unkindness or cruelty of the wounded...at least not the wounded who are aware. It is those who are not aware of their wounds who wound.
Kindness flowed in me...unchallenged by your indifference. It didn't matter today.
My brother's wounded emotions are the visual picture of kindness...a child with a broken heart isn't unkind.
A lady who is trying to draw attention to the beauty of the wounded...isn't unkind.
I know I have been unkind. But it was before I broke my silence.
I am posting it again! Call Me Mental...
