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| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 1627 Registered: 9-2006  |
There is no universally accepted definition of emotional abuse. Like other forms of violence in relationships, it depends on the damage done by the abuser whether purposely or unintentional. What led up to this story of the lost summer was an attempt to recognize and deal with my own journey through life and the why of things. Emotional abuse is often trivialized. We understand and accept that victims of physical or sexual abuse need both time and specialized treatment to heal. But when it comes to emotional abuse, we are more likely to believe the victims will "just get over it" when they become adults. That assumption is dangerously wrong. Emotional abuse scars the heart and damages the soul and wounds the spirit. Whether the emotional abuse is by a parent, a church, or peers, the effects can be long lasting, and it leaves the emotionally abused to deal with it. The damage can result from a single act or a series of acts. Some emotionally abused children are programmed to fail so effectively that they commit “success” suicide. When they get to the point of succeeding they must then fail and start all over again to succeed. Deciding for ourselves what goodness really is can be a first step to finding some satisfaction in life. The emotionally abused may constantly look for approval from those who cannot or will not provide it. For example a church with teachings that are emotionally abusive cannot and will not provide stability and hope to its congregation which includes adults as well as children. Invisible scars of verbal abuse in Children. Sexual and physical abuse has received much attention, but not much attention has been paid to the noxious effects of verbal abuse on children. They feel: Disregarded Untrusting Powerless and inadequate or unlovable As adults, they are at increased risk of alcoholism, criminality, mental health problems and poverty or other deep seated problems. A high percentage of people are the victims of verbal aggression, and unlike those physically abused, go without any protection. They live with anger, fear, and guilt. Verbal abuse is harmful to one's spirit and many times leaves one considering himself unworthy of love, friendship and respect and cannot respect themselves no matter they excel or not. In broad terms the result can be. Irrational thought patterns Self critical Depression Anxiety Self worth is frequently based on skills, academic achievement, status or financial resources. Emotional abuse can be as de-habilitating as a well placed bullet: "You're fat, ugly, stupid. “Sticks and Stone may break my bones, but words will forever hurt me” The lost summer I remember a time when I was about 14 years old we were having summer Bible school in the small dirt road community were I was born and raised. I begged my Mom into allowing me to take my Dad’s car over to the community church where the Bible school was held about four miles away from our home. So I got into that car, a 49 Hudson, which was a large car in those day’s and a really nice car, I took this thing and headed out for Bible school and when I got there it was an hour ahead of the time before the classes would begin. Some of my friends got the idea to take my Dad’s Hudson (I was the only kid who had wheels) over to pick up one of our other friends who lived about six miles away. A whole load of us piled into that car and headed out over the wide gravel road to pick him up, all of us acting up as 12, 13, 14 year old boys will do from the sheer joy of being young on a beautiful summer day. I had seen my older cousin go down the road and whip the steering wheel of his Dad’s car back and forth on those gravel roads just to hear the gravel swoosh on the undercarriage of the car. We came to a long straight stretch about a quarter mile long, everybody was horsing around, smoking cigars my friend had stolen from his Mom’s store and all of a sudden, I decided to whip the steering wheel back and forth to make the wheels slide so the gravel would come up and make noise on the undercarriage as I had seen my cousin do. We were doing about 50 mph, the big car began to skid wildly out of control and the wheels caught the road sideways and the big car rolled tumbling three or four times taking out fencepost as it went, finally landing on its side by the side of the road. No one was injured accept me; at least I didn’t have to live with the death or injury of my school mates. I thank God for that to this day. My neck was broken, not badly, I had a head injury and a long open cut across my shoulders and I was unconscious for a short time. I had been thrown from the car and came too laying on the ground a few feet from the car, my friends had remained inside the car with its plush seat’s and upholstery and I suppose that is how they escaped injury. Some one came along and gathered us up and took me to the hospital and the doctor cleaned and bandaged the cuts and my Mom came and took me home and fixed me in bed. I was badly bruised and I slept through most of that night and the next day. I could not speak or move, my Dad was off working driving dump trucks during all this time, the neighbor’s paraded by to get a look at me over the next couple days as I just lay there. I felt like a slab of meat on display at Safeway. My Dad got home about three day’s later, he walked to the door of my room and made this one statement “You aren’t even worth killing” and walked away. He never spoke to me again during the next two weeks that I can remember, I finally was able to get up and walk out of that room and walked outside to survey that car my Dad was so proud of, it was pretty bad beat up and I was too. I stumbled back into the house and back to bed exhausted from my foray to the front yard, after another week I could walk to our mail box about a hundred feet from the house. I slowly healed, but I never healed from the disappointment caused by that accident, nor could I heal from my Dad’s cold stare and those words. I guess things went downhill between Dad and me after that. It’s really weird what words from a parent can do, I remember just before that I had two prized coon hound pups I had been raising, they were a matched pair of black and tan hounds from the same litter and I frolicked the summer away with those pups, we were inseparable. They were about six months old when my Dad wanted to take them with him to work in the woods, so he put them into the trunk of the car with a stick under the lid, he brought them back and forgot to take them out of the trunk, it was a hot summer day about 100 degrees. I began to look for my dog’s and found them in the trunk of that car. They had suffered horribly before they died, I looked at Dad accusingly and said “Daddy, you killed my dogs”. His words were something like “I forgot” I felt he should have apologized for killing my dogs. It was like that between me and my Dad. The gulf widened between Dad and I that summer. When I was sixteen I joined the Navy and when I found out they wanted me to chip paint all the way across the Pacific I un-joined the Navy. A captain in San Diego interviewed me and ask me if I wanted to stay in the Navy and I told him no, I wanted to go home. The captain was willing to keep me, it is surprising what they will do to keep a healthy body, but I had had enough. When I came home restlessness had taken hold that I could not satisfy. I roamed the country doing about every job you can think of until my Mom forwarded my draft notice to where I was in Goshen Indiana, my sixteen year old girl friend, whom her Mom thought was pregnant, made me decide it was a good time to answer Uncle Sam’s call to serve my country anywhere but in Indiana. So I caught a dog (greyhound) and went to Ft. Jackson S.C. I never spent much time at home after that sixteenth birth day, the gulf between my Dad and I just widened after that accident, in my mind it will always be “The summer I rolled the Hudson and lost my prized pups”, Dad lost his prized car and I lost my prized pups and about half my soul along with it. I loved the West, it just seemed like I could breathe better away from my home state. When I drifted back there it just seemed like I couldn’t get my breathe, so I drifted, I herded cattle on horseback, became a mechanic for ford, became an electronics technician, became a shipwright, built boats, worked in an aluminum foundry, built campers and mobile homes, became a welder, went to college, went to trade school, worked on a farm, worked in the housing industry, became an auto painter, became an artist in oil Paints, worked for the Police dept. not in that order. I had trouble settling down so I drifted from one job to another all across the country. Driven from internal forces that I did not know how to deal with, a constant cycle of elation to deep depression and back to elation. Deep depression would hit with sledge hammer blows and I would just walk off the job leaving my boss scratching his head wondering what happened. I would be running a machine or something and just reach over and switch it off, clean up my work area and walk away. It wasn’t that they didn’t like me or my work; I worked for one place three different times. The depression would last from one day to several weeks and the most of the time the fact that I was again jobless only added to it, but then elation would hit me with equal force and I would go on a job interview and they would hire me on the spot and I would last until the next cycle of depression. I knew something was broke, I just didn’t know how to fix it. Married at 21, I just drug my wife and family along with me, my kid’s didn’t know from one day to the next what school they would be attending, I doubt if they even knew what grade they would be in from one place to the next and it was awfully hard on them. Two of them were born in Texas, two in California and one in Washington State. I only stayed in those places that long because of a pregnant wife and the military. And all of this probably stems from that summer when things got lost, souls and pups and cars. I think I was always looking for my Dad to say just one time “Son, you did well, its O.K.” He couldn’t really say that because he didn’t even know where I was half the time much less what I was doing. When I was a kid I thought my Dad was exceptionally wise because he worked with electricity, folks always called on him to set their dynamite off or come over and wire their chicken house. I thought he was a genius and nothing but genius would ever measure up, I could have built a space ship to the stars and it wouldn’t have been enough because I “just wasn’t worth killing”. At one time I had a really nice and kind boss who was committed to his ideals and his employees. I was selected as outstanding employee and when I walked into the office that morning all of the employees were there and as I walked in they started clapping and the owner of the company began paying me compliments. I turned on that poor man and chewed him up one side and down the other for a full five minutes and stormed out to the shock of everyone in that office. I drove about a quarter mile and pulled to the side of the road shaking with pain, shame and embarrassment, like a wounded animal whose care giver had tried to comfort and came too close and got bit for their trouble. That kind man knew I was broken, but didn’t know how to fix me and he stayed clear of me after that, I received orders through his secretary. Back in 1990 I went down to Ford and bought a new car just to go back and visit with my parents, I stayed two weeks and me and Dad sat and talked practically that whole two weeks and I knew our precious caring Lord made it possible, my Dad and I did some much needed fence mending, old rusty fences that were broken down, I knew when I drove away that my Dads time was not going to be long. I knew what the Lord was doing while I was there. We didn’t find that lost summer, it never came up, but we found some kind of understanding and most of all I found forgiveness, I forgave my Dad of everything that was ever between us including that lost summer. I went back one more time and we talked and healed again, and the time came that I took a plane for home, Dad was in Hospital on his death bed, I arrived there that night and he died sometime during the night after I kissed him on his sweating brow, my Mom had full blown Alzheimer’s and I am so grateful to the Lord for those times of fence mending. What was lost that summer can never be regained, there is no replacement for lost summers, but God can give us a new summer where the wind of his Spirit blows softly, oh so softly over damaged souls, the dandy lions of his love float gently on his breezes and the trees of his mercy sway gently back and fourth in the warmth of his embrace and we can again frolic through the open fields with the young puppy’s of his joy. When God saves us he accepts us as we are, alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes, religious, abused, not abused, we bring all kinds of problems to the table and the first thing we learn is that we still have problems, perhaps deep wounds and he sets out to heal us and make us whole again. The first mistake many of us make is that we set out to prove to God that we are worthy of love and that we can be perfect and “good”, we just transfer our approval seeking to God. “God wore my fathers face” The first thing I learned is that he doesn’t shoot a magic bullet into us and declare “There now, you’re perfect”. And the second thing I learned is that we get to go to “Gods school of higher learning.” The third thing I learned is that “His school is always in session”. Learning who we are to God is a definite road to healing. • You are valuable to God (Luke 12:24). • You are dearly loved (Isaiah 54:10). You are so loved by God that He sent His only Son to earth to die for you on the cross for our sin (John 3:16). • You were created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). That is beauty! • You are forgivable (Isaiah 43:25). • You need Christ’s strength (Philippians 4:13). • You have a purpose (Romans 8:29) • God cares about you (1 Peter 5:7) Unfortunately for some of us this is the hardest thing to accept, that we can be loved by anybody, God or anybody else, the depression finally went along with the migraine headaches. Resting in his love and care can not only help a wounded Spirit, but can help us to recognize how we came to be the way we are, and the way we were, committing those things to him. Will I ever be completely healed of that wound? I don’t know. But I do know this, I can rest in his love and care committing even that to him. Psalms 42:7 Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me. Psalms 42:8 The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, And in the night His song shall be with me-A prayer to the God of my life. River | ||
| Jorgfe Registered user Username: Jorgfe Post Number: 895 Registered: 11-2005 |
Wow! I'm speechless. What an incredible story. Not in the sense that it is completely different from ours, but from your gift of words. You speak from the heart for all of us. Thank you so much, Gilbert | ||
| Dane Registered user Username: Dane Post Number: 148 Registered: 4-2004 |
River, All I can say is, thank you. Dane | ||
| Olga Registered user Username: Olga Post Number: 92 Registered: 11-2005 |
Once again, River, you are an angel! Thank you for your willingness to share laughs and also the pain; it is all for God's purpose. Your words have just encouraged me at just the right time (God's timing is amazing!). Thanks again and may God bless you! | ||
| Gmatt Registered user Username: Gmatt Post Number: 32 Registered: 3-2005 |
May God bless you, River. You speak to our souls. | ||
| Snowboardingmom Registered user Username: Snowboardingmom Post Number: 365 Registered: 11-2005 |
That's so beautiful, River. Your testimony of God's healing touch in your life is so powerful. Thank you for your willingness to share. Grace | ||
| Randyg Registered user Username: Randyg Post Number: 504 Registered: 12-2004 |
River, your story is very moving, and caused me to shed a few. Partially because of your so well articulated story, but also as I reflect at my own failures as a parent and spouse. There are often times when I have wished I had been more supportive, or more careful in the way I have said things. Thank-you for making me again reflect on the importance of a parents words, my words, and how they are said and understood. Randy | ||
| Philharris Registered user Username: Philharris Post Number: 245 Registered: 5-2007  |
River, Your story, your words, are overwhelming. What has happened in your life sounds so much like that of my father, it leaves me in tears. The way the Lord has given meaning to your life shows me what could have been for him. He died...lost, in every respect. Reading through your story gives me an idea what must of happened to Dad. He was one of nine siblings and they all had troubles. It must have started at home. Furthermore, his grandparents also had troubled lives. The message to all of us is clear. Respond to the Lord's call while we still can. Whatever has happened, let the Lord remold our lives for his purposes. When our sins are forgiven, the Lord doesn't leave us in the quagmire of our past. Thank you, and I think that goes for all of us on this forum, for being our friend. And, thank you for sharing the things that we don't always know how to put into words. Your friend, Phil P.S. River, when you read my parents bio, read between the lines, and you will see what I'm talking about. | ||
| Toria Registered user Username: Toria Post Number: 210 Registered: 2-2006  |
River; I have no words except...Thank You. God Bless, Toria | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 7004 Registered: 12-2003  |
River, thank you. Once again you have articulated what most of us either fear to say or don't know how to say. Praise God that He redeems everything we submit to Him, and He wastes nothing. Thank you for encouraging us and giving us insight into our own struggles and for being our friend. God has brought you to us! Colleen | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 4401 Registered: 3-2004  |
River, Thank you so very much for telling us about yourself and you father. God is so good and He gave you time to mend some fences with your Father. I am glad you are here and that you are our friend. God brought you here for a reason. I pray that He shows you how to fulfill it. He is so awesome. Diana |
