I couldn't sleep tonight because I kept having memories I haven't thought about in decades, so I decided to get up and write them down. At one time in my life, I was what people around here called drop-dead gorgeous. From 14 to 24 years old, I could literally stop traffic. Well, keep in mind I live in a small town of 8,000 people, so it isn't like there were a lot of pretty girls in town. My Husband's attention was always on me, because if he looked away even for a few minutes, another guy was talking to me. One time he even got into a fight over me. It was crazy, scary and sooo hot. He worked in the oil field, throwing chain, and his arms were ripped. His butt was tight, his abs were rippled with muscles, and he was kicking the crap out of another guy over me. Now I know I should have liked it, but heaven help me, I did.🥴
He was my Hero, my knight in shining armour, and I never felt safer than I did with him back then. Although I was chosen for Mrs.(my state here) when I was 21, I never truly knew how beautiful I was. I mean, I knew I could get whatever I wanted, but the fact that I was truly beautiful just never really sank in. I had been fat from 9-13 years old, and had gone through the fat girl teasing in school, and such, so my confidence in my beauty never really happened. 😕
Then we had our first child, and my Husband cheated on me while I was still in the hospital with our first child. Any confidence I had was completely shattered. My body had changed in ways I could have never imagined, and I wasn't the center of my Husband's attention anymore. I mean, he still paid attention if another guy did, but it wasn't like it had been before. It wasn't because I hadn't lost the baby weight, because I did before our daughter was 2 months old. Then along came another baby, and that whole pregnancy saw me in therapy because I was sure he was cheating again, and I know he was, even though he denies it. 🙄
Well, due to childhood sexual abuse and extreme endometriosis, I had to have a hysterectomy at 21. My doctor kept telling me that it was chlamydia I had, and he wanted to know why I wouldn't leave my Husband. He said he must be giving it to me every time. I had to be in the hospital under IV antibiotics every 3 months for 2 weeks over 2 years, for what they finally called PID. After my hysterectomy, though, it was found that I had extreme endometriosis, and not an STD my Husband kept giving to me. This absolutely didn't help my self-esteem. It is very hard for a 21-year-old, mentally, to lose her ability to have more children. Especially when I wanted to have six kids. 😔
One day, my Husband's friend came to town, and my Husband was working. At this time, I was drinking heavily. It was during the one ,and only one, year I had a problem with drinking. Our kids were older; they were in early elementary school. Well, I was thin from not eating, due to drinking, and I knew this guy liked me. We had dated right before my Husband and I got together. So, I took a couple shots, and I dressed in Daisy Duke shorts and a halter top and decided to see what happened. His friend was a real good friend, and decided to sit in his truck for 8 hours until my Husband came home instead of making the biggest mistake either of us would have ever made. That was my rock bottom. This is my shame, and something I will never forgive myself for.😔
I stopped drinking because it had been bad for my marriage, and because I couldn't stand how much of a hoe I had tried to be. Then I started turning to food for comfort. That, combined with being in perimenopause in the 20's led to me gaining weight. I weighed 170 when I was 28 years old. When I was 34 years old, I became a mom again because we adopted our grandchildren. My Husband wasn't on board with this, at first, but I couldn't do anything but adopt my grandkids after the childhood I had. This was the only time I ever went against my Husband and stood my ground. This caused a distance to grow between us that is still here a little now. By the time our youngest 4 were school-aged, I weighed 289 pounds. I had no support when they were babies, and they were all born in 4 years. This meant I always had at least 3 in diapers and a bottles and at least 2 up for nighttime feedings, and I did this all by myself. No help from our daughter ( their biological mom) or my Husband, who thought their mom should help me. 😢
This was a really hard time for me. I went 5 years without a full night's sleep. As my Husband realized we had made the right decision, he started to help, but something had really broken inside me. I was so full of self-hatred that I didn't even try to get better. One day, our grown son called me and asked me what I was doing, and I told him I was just sitting around waiting to die. He tells me to this day that was the hardest thing he had ever heard. As our biological grandchildren got older, they started to show me so much love that I started to heal. I started to care because I wanted to live long enough to see them grow up. So I started trying to get healthier, and I have been trying ever since.🙂
I believe that my spirit in heaven before I was born on Earth chose what I would do here on Earth, and I think my spirit chose for me to lose my beauty instead of my soul. If I had stayed beautiful, I probably would have left my Husband. I came from a long line of beautiful women who have used men and thrown them away. They were alcoholics and drug addicts. I would have gone right down the same road. Even more than this, though, I would have never cultivated a heart of gold. I would have never learned how to love as truly and deeply as I do now. Many things changed for me with the loss of my beauty, but after I learned I couldn't depend on my beauty to get me through life, I learned to be a real person. To love others unconditionally. To feel other people's pain, because I had my own. I got closer to Elohim, and I clung to my Husband. I would not be the woman I am today if I had stayed beautiful on the outside, and I would not have learned to love myself instead of hating myself because of what I had even thought of doing. 🙂
People tell me I am still beautiful, but when you were really beautiful once, you know better. Where I care about being beautiful, though, on the inside, I am, and this I consider to be one of the biggest blessings of my life.🙂
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Good post and that meme about denying your mistakes is very, very deep and true to it's core.
I had to re-write this because you have sparked on so many topics I have personal experience with. I keep trying to address everything in detail and it's just too much. LOL
Give yourself more credit for the wonderfully caring and thoughtful person you are today. Give yourself a gold star for not leaving your husband. Give yourself another for adopting the grand kids. But most importantly forgive yourself for any thing you thought about doing but didn't actually do. Honestly you don't know for sure that you would have messed around with that guy.
My god I could spend days on this thread. You are a thoughtful person who puts others ahead of yourself and have grown as you lived and learned and became a better person than you started as. It's ok to be proud of yourself for everything you have been through and what you give the people you care about. Take care of yourself as well as you do everybody else in your life because you are important too.
@Dainbramadge I am so glad to know there is someone who can understand and identify with some of my life experiences. It makes me feel less alone. I am very grateful for your comment. I keep reading your comment over and over again, trying to let it sink in. I want to believe everything you wrote. I want to feel everything you have told me it is ok to feel. I want to forgive myself. I really do, but the self-loathing has become such a big part of me, and I have to fight it away every day. The words you have written are like a soothing balm to my heart, and I can't find the words to express how much this means to me. Thank you with all my heart for your kind and thoughtful comment. You have helped me more than you will ever know.
@WildMountainRose My anger management counselor told me something that has stuck with me for a very long time. I didn't get it at first but it lingered in my mind until I realized exactly what he meant and he was dead on.
He told me "the reason your so good at kicking your own ass is because you have spent so much time doing it."
Rather than dissect it for you, I think I will let you ponder it like I did because when it finally resonates in your soul, I mean in your core, you are finally free.
Also, practice makes perfect. A kind of silly but damned effective thing you can do to start this self forgiveness is look in the mirror everyday. I mean dead in the eyes and say " You didn't do anything wrong and you are only human. I forgive you." I know that sounds silly as hell. But it really is effective after a little while. Ok it took about six months for me maybe even longer but I am kind of hard headed.
Another super effective tool is one I made up myself and am pretty proud of myself for. It is called the "fuck it bucket". When I would have one of those intrusive thoughts pop into my head, I would imagine crumpling it up and tossing it into a bucket. I would also say out loud "Fuck it Bucket". When that one starts to work, that is a great feeling. You actually are empowering yourself to toss the thought that used to mean so much to you into the abyss. It loses it's power over you.
So essentially everything I have just shared with you is all teaching yourself a better way to think. A better way to treat yourself. You do deserve to be treated better by yourself it just takes practice. You have to give yourself permission to forgive yourself.
I kid you not I have millions off hours of material on this type of subject. If you want I can be more specific on the stupid shit I did, normally more than once, and how I directly dealt with the issues and repercussions.
You can PM me any time with any thing. I'm not on here as much as I used to be but I will always treat anything you ask seriously and honestly.
