Disclaimer: This was hard for me to live. It was equally hard to write. It may be even harder to read. Please take care of you if you choose to read on – reading on is most definitely a choice. If something squeezes your heart too tight – listen to that. Take a break and come back later. These words will not leave.
I was like a woman shipwrecked, lost at sea and adrift. Rising and falling with the tide I lay deathly still while the waves of panic, shame and hopeless washed over me; soaking me to the depths of my soul.
I lay there after a four-hour session with my guides. The storm was over, the ship had sunk, the sea was calm after its hunger was satiated. I lay in the waves, no shore in was in sight and the waves came cold, relentless and without mercy.
The last request I made was that He would give me a harbinger of hope to keep me afloat. Something to feed my soul like driftwood to cling to; a piece of bread to hide in the seams of my soul to be taken out and nibbled upon. I played over and over a prayer set to music, drifting in and out of a stupor brought on my the Benadryl I took, the impact of the wreckage and trauma of being sunk once again.
Hours went by as I weakly tried to grasp something to hold onto, a word a thought, something to hold my head above the water. No sooner would I lay hold of something, then another wave came and hope was gone, my head would go under the wave of panic momentarily.
Then it came a leviathan came from the depth of darkness. He must have smelled the blood that was hemorrhaging from my soul and leaked into the water; they say that the smell of blood is easily picked up in the ocean. It was the same sea creature who has stalked me all of my life, his name was Accusation.
“This is not only what has been done you…
This is who you are and who you will always be.
I will never let you forget it.”
His approach was stealth, quiet, brooding, and dark. He came over my soul and spirit and in one bite severed my hands. Not my heart, no – my hands. I could no longer grasp the driftwood or the bread of hope. I watched on the screen of my weak and horrified mind as hope floated away in the rhythmic waves that suddenly seemed darker and colder. I succumbed, handless and hopeless into what can only be called an ocean of despair.
It’s a lie… I weakly cried. A lie. There is no mercy… then into the merciless sea I sank.
No. I would not come home. I was lost at sea forever to a watery grave. He called… I couldn’t answer. When I finally did, he saw me not just broken but shattered; on the bathroom floor, helpless, hopeless, retching, unable to hold up my head. Shame had dealt a lethal blow – the blood was on the floor. It was as if for the first time he saw I was a person, not a wife, not a mother, but a real person; a person to whom things happened.