Sarah Murray

“I can’t let it go, when I’m responsible to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

-Your nervous system.

“But, it made you stronger.”

It didn’t though. Our society calls it strength when it’s hypervigilance. There’s deep grief with healing. The loss of what you knew & acceptance that life will be different. “It made you stronger” doesn’t respect the depth of what really happened.

Safe relationships are not threatened by honesty, & safe people are not threatened by you working your trauma or addiction recovery.

If a connection seems to be threatened by you getting real & working your recovery, get curious about what the hell that's about.

If it matters to you, it is not a "waste of time." You don't need anybody's validation to make something a worthy investment of your time & focus-- & you definitely don't need your abusers' or bullies' approval, real or imagined, to make an activity or interest valid.

I need you to remember that fear is a reflex. We don't "choose" fear. There is no shame in fear. You're experiencing a conditioned response-- no more, no less. Your "choice" is in how you talk to yourself & support your inner child through this fearful moment.

Breathe. Breathe.

The body of Christ is called to be like Christ as individuals and as a gathered body of those who are one with Him. Anything that does not look like Christ is NOT the church, even if it purports to be.

The length of the grieving is determined by the griever, not by how long you, as a comforter, can stand to be sad.

I find it's useful to think of trauma recovery as a relationship between the "parts" of us that hold trauma feelings & memories, "parts" that hold hopes & dreams, & "parts" that just want a normal, functional life.

Every "part" matters, needs care, & needs to be listened to.

Hope is terrifying when you’ve learned to expect pain.

God demonstrates His words in the flesh with full integrity so that what He says and what He lives look the same; they match. His words, His process of carrying them out through actions in relationships, and the end result - they are all identical.

We're not doing anyone we care about or who depends on us any favors by denying, ignoring, or "stuffing" our trauma. Ask me how I know.

Working our recovery w/ clarity, consistency, & humility is an act of love toward the people, pets, projects, & causes we care about.

Trauma and brokenness takes really beautiful things and twists them.

Self sacrificial love can twist into people pleasing. Caring well for others can twist into trying to earn our worth. Empathy can twist into “fixing” other people.

Part of healing is untwisting the beautiful pieces of who we are.

Tonight, I am tired of being strong enough. I am weary of carrying so much of life alone.

Stop. Saying. Telling. The. Truth. Doesn’t. Matter.
It matters.
Saying it doesn’t matter because it won’t change things is just enabling utilitarianism wrapped up in pseudorighteousness.
Tell the truth.
Scream it into the void.
Truth has value in itself. Or it’s not truth.

When you marry someone, you make a commitment, and you promise to stay with that person through good times and bad. But the moment your spouse abuses you, your obligation to them is over. Marriage is not a vow to be abused!

I am finding myself struggling with my belief that as Christians we forgive and offer grace and live a life of redemption. I want that to be who I am, who we are as a people, but sometimes things are so damaged it feels impossible.

How do we discern what is true repentance while being wise/safe?

Traumas suggest we are worthless and do not matter.

Talking tells the truth and gives dignity because the story matters, as does its impact.

Repentance is not verbal only. It is always demonstrated consistently in a life over time. And true repentance is a process that requires time and more time to be made evident.

This. To do it all the right way and still end up with brokenness and pain is such a hard reality.

There is a fine line between dwelling on and drowning in the memories and holding them while you grieve.

I don’t want to forget. It is not worth it to erase the beautiful good things just to avoid the pain.

I keep the words and look at the pictures and the tears are expressions of love.

I write poems too. But just for me (and God too I guess.) Mine also ask a lot of unanswered - maybe unanswerable - questions.

These are beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

When you grow up in an abusive home, you don’t become a people pleaser to please people. You become a people pleaser to keep the potential for more abuse away.

There is something so uniquely painful about grieving the loss of dreams, of a future you wanted, of hope you had.

And it is not a grief limited to death.

There are broken relationships that change the course of your life and that is no less painful.

Your life, your choice!

#coercivecontrol

I am not interested in arguing with you. I was just proposing something to think about.

I didn’t say it was. I am suggesting we have glorified individualism and independence and made the idea of codependency so awful that we miss out on nuance and interdependent/intertwined community and relationship.

I’d much rather risk being slightly codependent than be isolated.

It's not "childish" or "weak" to feel resentful that we have to cope w/ & process the pain we have to cope w/ & process, or to be jealous of those who don't have to-- and but also, we can't let that resentment or jealousy keep us from working our recovery today.

Related: I wonder if American individualism has vilified the idea of codependency beyond what it should be. We are created to be relational and I wonder if the church would be better off if we were more dependent on one another.

Abuse survivors are heavily triggered by dishonest people. When you’ve sacrificed your time and security in order to figure out the truth, people who lack truth will feel like they’re pulling you back to your darkest days.

It takes practice to hold back apologizing for things you owe no one any apologies or explanations for. Not apologizing is a skill. You're not gonna be great at it for a long minute-- and that's okay. Work on it.

Remind yourself that this, & you, are a work n progress.