To say the last couple weeks have been healing is an understatement. Those that have been here since the beginning know the many things I have gone through in my life. I’ve had to process so much trauma at a young age and it’s been years of therapy and introspection in the making.
For years I’ve held onto the possibly that maybe I deserved what I got, that I was being punished in some way; I thought there had to be a reasonable explanation for how I was treated. There had to be something to fix and no therapist has been able to give me complete closure.
I made peace that I would never feel completely okay and frankly I stopped praying for reprieve a long time ago. It’s one of those “put on a shelf and deal with it in the afterlife” type of situations. I knew that I would forever be jumping when someone slams their fist down, or when they raise their voice, and I’d always have the fear that Chris would treat me like I was before. I felt I was a flawed human who at any point will implode the relationship.
Almost fourteen years ago I got married and one year later my life would be in shambles, even now I cannot properly articulate what happened. There was so much pain, so much hurt, and so many lies. I have tried to keep details off the blog but you get the idea. I was a shell of a person. Then I left.
I knew that going forward I would have a long road of recovery ahead. I had good days and bad days, with the bad days getting less and less often over the years. I also knew that most people never get restitution and I accepted that.
However, I am a person who feels the need to fix everything. I need to understand the whys of human behaviour and perhaps that’s why I couldn’t let what happened to me go. I always had the gnawing need to better myself and know if I did everything I could.
That brings us to a year ago. I wrote a post willing my body to go back to who I was, I had remembered something that I had completely blocked from my mind before I even met my ex-husband. My body was finally ready to start to process the trauma. I went to therapy, I talked to Chris, and I dealt with it.
All during this I had dreams about Arles. Not very often and he was never angry or scary. Always just there. Recently the dreams became more frequent and this last month it was much more than before, there was an urgency to them and I knew that it was our spirits trying to connect. I would like to believe that Ayla had a hand in it. I have been slowly fixing parts of myself to this point where I was ready to tackle the most terrifying part, knowing.
I talked to people who started me on the path of reconciliation. I prayed probably the most fervently than I have in years and I reached out to get the closure that I have craved for thirteen and a half years. It was the most painfully difficult thing I’ve done in years. I was allowing the carefully boarded up part of my past to reopen, and to top it off, it was to someone that had hurt me in unimaginable ways.
I have fought to be who I am now and to not be angry or bitter but this, this was almost too much. I didn’t know how to say what I needed to while protecting myself from the possibility that this conversation could re-traumatize me again.
That he could say things that would make me remember how small I felt back then, the gaslighting that made me believe that I was crazy. That if I had been a better person, it wouldn’t have turned out the way it did. Do you know how terrifying it is to open yourself up to all those feelings again? I almost let it end there. I was told he wanted to apologize but I didn’t know if I wanted to hear it all. But I did. I wanted to hear what he had to say. So I reached out.
I explained some of how his actions have impacted me. I told him my insecurities of what I felt I did wrong. But I also told him the words I didn’t know if I could type only a few days prior, “I forgive you” and “…for me it wasn’t a mistake” I poured out my heart and let the spirit flood my soul as I finally let go of it all.
The response I got still has me sobbing. “You did nothing wrong… ".... I wasn't the person I should've been." That simply isn't true of you.” The rest was full of more healing than I could’ve ever imagine.
After all these years, after all the pain and anguish I have dealt with, I finally read that he was sorry. Truly sorry. It was nothing I expected to get closure on and the last four days I’ve felt like a weight has been taken off and has been replaced with the love of God. I questioned if He even cared that this was something I wanted and I came to accept that he simply didn’t. But, that wasn’t true; He was waiting for a time where both of us were ready to take this step.
I have been bursting to share with every person who helped me through the dark times and even those going through dark days of their own. The Atonement is actually real! I knew Jesus suffered for our sins but until Saturday night I had no idea how it would extend to my healing too.
I was never forgotten and the words that Arles wrote was everything that I needed to read. I did everything I could and he sees that now, I was a good mother then (and I’m extending it to now too), and I did make a difference.
The dreams I had led me to this. I never imagined that after all these years I would have clarity and honestly? It’s going to take some time to get used to. So much of my life has been taken up by trying to gain this closure. Now I finally can let go.
To those who were there for me back then, and those who have been since, I want to thank you. Thank you for helping lift me up, thank you for always reminding me that I was worthy of love, and thank you for never leaving my side. It’s been a long time in the making but I’m here. And it feels incredible.
We are never forgotten. God loves us and one day everything will be made right. I got my happy ending but I know many who don’t. I just know that God and angels work behind the scenes to heal us.
He cares. I know this now.
