COMING EVENTS!.

I’ve been thinking about April. National Child Abuse Prevention Month. There was nothing around like that when I was a kid. I thought maybe it would be appropriate to share a short piece from my book on that little girl and how she felt.

I WAS ONCE just a little girl and fragile. I was my parents incomplete thought in the back seat of a car at conception and the creature that would go on to ruin their lives. I was without substance, courage, appreciation or understanding. I believed I was treated so badly because I was so very wicked. I was self-serving and cared only for my own survival. I would not risk extra whippings or death to save my younger brothers. I believed I was an undeserving and worthless character whom my parents did not want and of whom God disapproved. (p.226)

In some cultures, and in our fairly recent American past, a black armband signifies that the wearer is in mourning or wishes to identify with the commemoration of a comrade or team member who has died. This use has been significant to me for the last few years as I have pondered over the fact that I live. Many like me did not.

I will be wearing a black armband, made from simple fabric store ribbon, throughout the month of April out of respect for those children and as an awareness that it happens all too often. I will wear a blue ribbon tied with it to commemorate the blue ribbon month of April. I hope you will join me. April is after all National Child Abuse Prevention/Awareness.

COMING EVENTS!.

After the show last night, which just happened to be an interview with my Publisher, I found myself thinking instead of sleeping!  This happens often.  But this was not random pondering about life as I drift off to sleep.  This was important.  Michelle said something important that I have not articulated very well, or at least as well as she did last night.

Everyone, yes, EVERY ONE OF YOU, has a story to tell about your life.  You should write it!  Write it even if all you do is (very carefully and lovingly since it is your life) place it in a box in the attic, garage, storage…  pick your place here.  Write it with your own words, your own feelings, thoughts, joy, pain, and even confusion and bad grammar and spelling.  Write it for your family.  Write it for your children or grandchildren.  Write it for the history of your time !  Your lifetime!

What we didn’t talk about last night was that with texting, social media and instant everything we now have for communicating we are losing our stories and our history.  We don’t write letters that are tied in ribbon and saved in shoeboxes.  So much of history is discovered in writing.  What parts of our lives will they tell in 75 years when we are gone?  Who will tell the future about us here in the past? Politicians?  Entertainers?  No one?

I hope that your story will be found an old box, or in a thrift stores (if they still call them that) or maybe some dusty attic.  I hope that these are treasured when they are found.

I hope that in 75 or 100 years they read the story of a survivor and think what a pioneer you were to actually write it down.  To be one of the first to talk about it even if only in pen and paper.

I believe that history teaches us how to move forward.  If there were mistakes made in the past they will never be corrected if they are kept secret.  Hard to move forward if you can’t figure out where you have been.

I would beg you to write your story if you were here in my kitchen tonight.  The good, the bad and the ugly.  Don’t forget the joys and miracles they are so important.  If you want to really look at your life, this is a great way to do it.  It is safe.  It is private.  And in all that honest writing you will find the good parts too!

Dream Big, Live Large and Believe…   XOXO  Annie

LETS HEAR IT FROM YOU.

Lots of conversation on my FB age about blame lately.  Holy moly do we ever know how to take the blame.  Guilt runs in the blood. 

I ask you to please comment, write, vent…  I want to hear from you.  i know that while I was in my years of healing, I absolutley felt guilty and to blame for so many things.  However, an interesting observation began to take hold thanks to a wise therapist. I did not blame one person I was ever in group with.  We told our stories, cried, got mad and all the other expected emotions came out.  Never once were we as kind and understanding to ourselves as we were one another.  How about you?  Don’t you think you deserve to be treated as well as you treat another aching soul?  I think you do.

Toxic People?.

Yes I know them.  They are usually in the form of my family.  They suck the life out of me at every opportunity, drag my emotions into the mud under their oversized shoes which they will then use to kick me while I am down.  They are negative, manipulative, casting blame and they can somehow, while appearing and feeling quite justified turn a happy day into a living hell.

I beleive, based on years of my own therapy and group experiences, that all survivors have these people in their lives.  We tend to tolerate more than most people and we learned NOT to stick up for ourselves.  Me?   I was born to people who are very toxic to me and I tend to attract them.  Example:  I call my mother fairly regularly.  She does not, and has made it clear, she will not call me.  Then she proved it.  My step-father died and she didn’t call.  I found out and called her, then somehow felt guilty for not calling sooner or enough in the weeks that followed.  She made me feel so bad infact that I finally stopped calling her.

1. AVOIDANCE

Consider your options.  Do you have to deal with him or her? have you tried telling them how you feel?  Did they listen? Did they change anything?

2. BOUNDARIES

Toxic people will often use you, one way or another. The may complain to you all the time while you listen hopelessly (?), or they may constantly blame you, cause trouble, or siply continuously tell you everything that is worng with you and how you do not measure up.trouble.  WORD HERE is BOUNDARIES

Easy to say, not really so easy to execute.  But you simply must try and be kind to yourself.  It will get easier.  Like everything else in life, it takes practice.  We all gotta start somewhere.  As you can see I am still working on it.  But I am so much better than I used to be.

3. GUILT

The guilt you are feeling while practicing your boundaries is misplaced.  Do not take it on.  Its manipulating you.  (in this case at least)  Self talk might help here, or maybe a trusted friend who will surely be outraged at what was said to you.

Toxic people are very skilled at making others (you) feel guilty when they (again YOU) don’t do or get what what they want.

4.  Stop Defending yourself

They are not listening.   It is absolutely futile.  The more you defend the better they will get achieving their goal, which is manipulating you into action. You won’t get anywhere with them by defending yourself and your actions. They are not listening to you.

~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~NICE PEOPLE ARE FOUND BY TOXIC PEOPLE~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~