Speaking Out In The Midst of Silence

"Your Silence Will Not Protect You" -Audre Lorde

You think I haven't asked myself if I "lied" my way through Mercy? You don't know how hard it is to live a lifestyle so suffocating, yet only to be expected to change it all within such a short period of time as if it never happened. At first, I would have done anything to leave. I was told in the very beginning of my stay that as long as I work the program-it'll work me. My mindset was, "Dang, I will work this however they want me to or however I have to just to get out as fast as possible." I wasn't ready for the heart change that was happening each day of my stay there.

I literally had a heart change. I was totally renovated and Christ over took all the control that I had tried so desperately to hold onto. I gave myself to him. So the question is, how can I fake the peace and gentle spirit that He had given to me? How can I fake the knowledge I had attained, the dreams I had dreamt, along with the goals and aspirations that He had placed within my soul? I can't. I'm not that good. I can fake or pretend many things...in fact I tend to do it a lot. But to say that I had pretended any of that? No. Everything I had written, everything I had said, everything that I had proclaimed---was all me with the Holy Spirit wrapping its arms so gently around me. It is really who I am deep within my soul. And it's as if that part of me is locked in a room that is on fire and I am seeing all the life outside when looking out of the window as I scream to be let out...but I'm trapped.

Coming home, much changed. It became easier to know and pin-point what is wrong with me, rather than trying to continually search for "who I am". Placing my finger on it, "I am this disorder(s)", slowly broke me inside and out. How I had once viewed myself, the way I once stood, the life I once had seems to be so lost. I feel as if I have died again. Giving up seems to have cost me everything. I seem so weak as if I have been defeated, it's as if I feel I am not strong enough to stand in the pain; even though I know that I am somwhere deep in the very heart of my...I am...

Coming "home" is much more of a challenge than I thought it'd be. I'm not alone, yet even when being surrounded by a million faces, I still feel so lost and alone. I've become entangled in my thoughts. I have succumbed to things that I'd typically be ashamed of-but now I'm numb to. I have been so afraid to allow pain back into my life, that I changed everything. I realized that when being vulnerable-I wasn't strong. Vulnerability put me in dangerous situations or positions in lives that I couldn't handle. I went into Mercy, timid and afraid...during the stay there I was protected so I didn't have to fight much anymore face to face-yet when coming home I had to fight back actually against them, so the way to do that was build a wall around myself. Every part of me I have hardened. What was first meant for men slowly became how I handled friends and family. This "plan of attack" within my mind has slowly corrupted everything I have learned, yet HOW is it that I let the walls down?

I hate this feeling of no longer feeling unity that for months I worked so hard for. The disappointment of who I've daily become is weighing on my shoulders. What I knew as wrong has turned to be OK. All that I had seemed to have gained is now lost. It's not why it once was due to pain caused from in the past. Now it is because of me. I have become my own enemy. I am fighting a raging war against myself and I don't know when the war will come to an end. I know that I have cheerleaders and supporters of those who long to see me succeed-I know that my family cry and their hearts ache for me with this...but no one can seem to understand. Not even I. To figure out ME, the milestone and the heart of who I am, only God knows. I keep having to say, "Oh Lord, my God, you know my heart...please guide me into where I meet with you again", because I am so lost in the maze of where I've been plopped right back into. It isn't anyone BUT me...but since I'm fighting a war against myself, it comes out as if I'm fighting against the ones who truly love me and long to understand. I'm not. I don't mean to hurt any feelings or to make any cry. I apologize, for I know I have broken many spirits. This isn't something I enjoy. For it is slowly and surely killing me softly. Any thing I had held onto...I seem to be letting go. And this is my biggest let down::myself. All that I fought so hard for, now I'm just letting go? All that I was determined to prove-I just let it all fall in order to shatter into a million pieces that I can't seem to pick up and place back together...

So what I do...what my defense has become is...

Silence. I remain silent. Letting no one in. And no one out. Not even myself.