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Friday, November 19, 2010

The Stranger

So, reading this... I had an incredibly HUGE emotional reaction. The kind that I get when something big is changing in my mind...

The nightmare started when I was five. The "Stranger" would come in my home. He'd hurt my family if I didn't do what he wanted. I could protect some of them, but never all of them. Its been a lot of years, and I still have nightmares. (Although in the last 8-9 months, they have decreased tremendously. Round about the time that I decided I wasn't going to let fear or guilt run my life anymore. And I quit trying to go to church. And live the way they wanted me to live. And I started being more honest about who I am.)

In therapy, we have talked about what traumatic event might cause these nightmares. (I have a lot of them, but none that I could trace back that far...) Paul even talked about casting out evil spirits. We had so many sessions to talk about evil spirits. Possession. Oh. No.

At five, is when I started to understand how evil and selfish I was. That's when I started to try to change everything about me. When I was no longer good enough as just me.

In the book, The Voice of Knowledge, he talks about that very thing. When we learn words, people start to teach us that we aren't good enough. He shares the story of Adam and Eve, and says that eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge introduced us to the biggest lie there is: The lie of good and evil. The lie that WE become good or evil based on what we do. say. or think.

The Stranger has tormented me for so long.
And all I had to do to be free of him, was to listen to me.

I'm still really, REALLY emotional. Feeling a little crazy... but I'm used to that. I have been through this enough to know that once THIS feeling passes, everything will be different.

6 comments:

  1. Glad the nightmares are beginning to go away. I've met "The Stranger." He's not a nice guy. Thanks for sharing this.

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  2. Thank you. I'm sorry you've met him too... I hope he hasn't visited you in a long time.

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  3. When you can be totally honest about who you are, and be fine with who you are, you can truly love yourself. I'm glad you're improving and feeling some freedom in your "own" choices. Hang in there Jen!

    I met you at CALM last month and have thought a lot about you. I hope things are going better in your life. If you're interested, my husband's blog is: www.celestialrodeo.blogspot.com

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  4. Fanny, I'm trying to remember who you are. I'll be honest that meeting was so hard... I was so emotional... I am struggling to place you.

    Any clues?
    I'll check out your husband's blog - maybe that'll help me figure out who you are.

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  5. I'm a FB friend of yours ;) If you can't figure it out, I'll talk to you next meeting. Will you be there in December?

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  6. That's really scary. I'm glad the nightmares aren't as bad as they used to be.

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