Tunnel Blast

 

via kk61.blogspot.com

Last night, I shared my inventories with my sponsor.  I had my inventory categorized under 7 neat little titles: 

Times I Felt God's Presence in My Life

Positive Traits

Times I Saw Myself as a Victim

Thought I Could Save Myself -Didn't Use My Savior

Times I Let Fear Debilitate Me

Times I Didn't Keep My Word

Times I Feared Others More Than God 

As I went through my list, I realized that a GREAT DEAL of my inventory -no matter what category it was found under -all seemed to navigate back to one thing: low self-worth.

I was fine identifying it.  I had low self-worth all growing up and that's why I tended to see myself as a victim, that's why I never took my hurts and pains to the Savior and tried to handle things myself...

But why?  Where the heck did the low self-worth come from?

My sponsor asked me one question that sent my mind spinning.  I went to bed with it on my mind, and when I woke up this morning, the question had found an answer.  And I cried for the little girl I used to be.

I see her as a person apart from myself: she's so beautiful and important and sweet and her heart is so good.

And it ISN'T HER FAULT her mother fell off of a horse and hit her head on a rock.

It ISN'T HER FAULT she was raised by a woman who had a damaged brain.  

It isn't her fault.  She isn't a bad girl.

But she doesn't know that.  And because she doesn't know that, she doesn't feel important.  She doesn't feel loved.  She doesn't understand that her mother isn't like other mothers.  

She remembers being hungry and asking for food, standing by the fridge asking, asking, asking... she remembers her mother slapping her across the face and sending her to her room.

BECAUSE she was A BAD GIRL.

The foundation for my low self-worth was laid when I was a toddler. 

I internalized and self-blamed/shamed myself my entire life.  

I feel like this realization is the final blast in the tunnel.  I'm starting to see light peaking through the other side. 

I'm coming to know myself.

I don't blame my parents.  I admire them for sticking it out, for trying, for working together as Mom's brain healed... and it did heal.  

In high school, my mother and I used to drive to my flute lessons in a nearby city every other week.  I treasured those lessons.  Although my mother was a stay-at-home mom, she was in many ways, absentee.  I clung to those trips like NO other.  They were my opportunity to HAVE a Mom.

During one trip she said, "If I could give my kids anything -anything at all -it would be confidence.  I would instill confidence in them."

I remember her saying that.  I know my mother would never intentionally rob me of my self-worth or do anything to cause or foster low self-worth.  

I'm no stranger -it turns out -to living with someone with a broken brain.

Emotions wash over me today as I can see a little kindergartener in my mind's eye... she's scared of offending, of others, of disapproval, of offending, of not being absolutely agreeable to everyone.

If they love her, she will believe she's loved.

And she doesn't know it, but she's about to spend a life time setting patterns along those lines.  Fear will dominate her life.

UNTIL.

March 27, 2013.

Because now she knows.  Now she realizes.  And now, she will never go back.  Now she can look at the 5 year old doing a puppy puzzle in the Kindergarten room and love her.  Oh, how she loves her.

Oh, how she wishes she could reach through time and stroke her hair and tell her how important she is.

How lucky -how divinely lucky she is to have a blonde-haired Kindergartener at her fingertips without any time travel... she has a daughter: an important, beautiful daughter with hazel eyes and her Daddy's nose, and she can squeeze her, and stroke her hair and tell her:

YOU ARE IMPORTANT.  YOU ARE WHY I'M HERE.  YOU ARE MINE AND I. LOVE. YOU.

More than you will ever know, daughter.

More than you will EVER know.

Until you have a daughter of your own.

The Atonement is real.  The Savior LIVES.  He is present, presently.

I'm so grateful for my husband's addiction.