So much has happened since I last wrote. I read the blogs and wonder who that girl was that was writing and who she was writing to. I am saddened for the break in my vice; sharing my story in an authentic way as to help others with their own wounds. Writing is my way, my vice. The verbal aspect always gets stunted when I see the pain it causes. I can put down the words without the filter of fear of hurting someone. He never realized what the words meant to me. I never realized what the words did to me.
I am single. I wanted to die from the loss. And then I didn’t. It took me at least 6 months to even begin to remove the blinders. Then, I remembered who I am. THEN, I became that fierce woman again. I am not sure I will ever recover from losing the kids. I will always be grateful for learning that it is okay to love with every ounce of my being. And I would do it again. The pleasure will always outweigh the pain and that is how I choose to be. Because I can make the choice now. Just me, what I want and need.
The biggest thing I have learned is to be true to myself. Love until it steps on something you believe in. Make decisions based on your own needs. Make yourself happy. It is okay to feel good even when your loved one does not. Never compromise yourself for someone else. You don’t have to be a victim to own your story. AND, don’t mistake abuse for support.
There is a HUGE difference between enabling and disempowerment. Let’s just take those words at face value.
Enabling is by definition “to make easy.”
Disempowerment is to “deprive of influence and importance.”
Although taken at face value, the definitions appear that one is helping and the other is hurting… we often miss an important aspect.
One of them is often mistaken for support and one of them will kill your spirit and you. One of them allows bad behavior and one of them IS bad behavior. One of them allows a narcissist to trap someone and the other creates (or recreates) a victim. One of them makes love very blind, and one of them makes someone feel like they are the cause of everything. One of them is something someone claims is their “only” contribution to the problems in a relationship and the other one is someone feeling like they are the cause of every bad thing in the relationship. One of them reminds you of what you’ve done and one of them is the cause of what you have done.
Here’s the thing.. if enabling is making something easy, then the person doing the behavior would feel a sense of permission and ease to continue the behavior.
If disempowerment is depriving someone of influence and importance, then the person would feel like that they didn’t deserve anything good and that they didn’t matter. They had no voice.
Who decides the intent of behavior? The receiver, the doer?
When the doer has “subdued” the receiver, how does the receiver “wake up?”
When you assess your intent, make sure you are being honest with yourself. Are you enabling? Are you reminding someone of their struggles? Are you denying them because of some mistake they’ve made or because of something that was done to them?
If you are the receiver of any of this, know this is abuse. In the worst form. Hidden in the shadows of help. Taking advantage of the kind is the worst kind of abuse.