Man in the Mirror PROJECT: Results of Abuse: More of My Story

"Emotional abuse, on the other hand, tends to happen every day. The effects are more harmful because they're so frequent."

- Psychology Today

It was in June, 2009, when my world fell apart.  I had just come to the realization that everyone, and I mean everyone, was abandoning me and my children.  I was leaving my marriage after 22 years.  The abuse cycle in the family of both my ex and my own had reached it's limit.  I no longer wanted that life, or to teach my children the same way to live.  I was told to report the physical abuse to the authorities and if I didn't, my son would be taken away.

It was also that June, when the people who I thought were supposed to love me, my parents walked out.  My husband, whom I also thought loved me betrayed me and my friends did the same.  On the 25th I found out that the one piece of my world that I thought was still in place was taken as well.  Michael Jackson was pronounced dead.  The next day, the 26th, I would have to put my dog Duke asleep.

I remember sitting at the kitchen table devastated.  I couldn't move and I couldn't think.  I just sat there staring out the kitchen window.  I was numb, frozen and paralyzed.  I was alone.  I waited for God to take me.  Maybe he would take me in the next days by a car accident, maybe my ex would shoot me.  I could think of no reason to be on the earth anymore.  The message from all of my loved ones was loud and clear "You don't matter and we don't care."

I went to my bathroom and threw myself down on the floor.  I screamed at god in my head why he would do this to me.  After all I had been through, all that I had tried to be and all Michael and I had been through, why would he take everything away.  "Just take me now.  Take me too.", I begged.

I used to meditate in that bathroom.  I would look up the tree just outside the window and somehow get a sense of peace. This day I noticed the leaves were torn from a bug infestation. "Even the tree I love is dying", I thought.  I felt hopeless when a voice from behind me said "Would you have me take the tree too?"

I stopped crying at once and pondered the thought.  Of course not.  I loved the tree.  It helped me just by being there.

That's when the understanding came over me that I had to just "be" here.  I picked myself up and resolved to do the best I could.

Since then I have been hit with more.  It almost feels like someone throwing mud balls at you every time you try to get back on your feet.   People have literally gone out of their way to be mean and the wishes from my family for me to fail have been incredible.  My mother to this day sends my children birthday cards to my ex's house.  I have heard that she said if she sends them to my house I would take the money and use it for groceries.  I have promised my children when they are grown that if there ever comes a time when they need money for groceries they can come to me.

It's the digs like these, the continued emotional abuse that continues to beat you down.  You might think you are done when you step out of the cycle with family, but you're not.  You have learned your relationship from your family.  Chances are you will engage in the same types of relationships until you come to full realization and vigilance in maintaining them.

It was few years after I settled into our new home when the tenth bout of why is this happening came.  I had just received an email from someone I hadn't heard from in two years saying  "Good bye.  You know what you did."  How could I know what I did when I wasn't even around this women?  Obviously whatever it was, was my fault.

I later found that she, along with my other friends at the time, my mother and aunt were all talking about me behind my back.  After two years with not any of them talking to me, they decided what I was doing, how I was doing it, and I guess blamed whatever they created I was doing on me.  Go figure that one out.  When god says we are creators, he did mean it literally.

So it hit me again.  I went to the bathroom with that can't catch your breath kind of crying.  That's when Michael came in to help me.  Michael (Jackson) stood with me telling me I wasn't alone, but that wasn't' good enough.  It didn't make the pain go away as sweet as it was for him to reach out. He kept repeating the words telling me he was there to help when finally he got so frustrated I heard him call for Elizabeth.

"Elizabeth!" I can still hear the desperation in his voice and later I even teased him about it.  But it was sweet and Elizabeth couldn't have been more kind.  She asked why I felt the way I did, what happened and even relayed the information back to Michael.  Since then we have compared notes on our lives and realized some very important lessons that we have both needed to learn.

It involves boundaries.  If you listen to the psychic reading on the side bar, she is also speaking with Michael during the reading.  He said you think people are trying to help you, but it's control, it's abuse.  He didn't realize this when he lived and was literally killed at the hands of abusers.

As we work together now, we are still learning how to become better at it.  For each time you are treated with the same kind of behavior you close your heart more.  You don't want to be hurt again.  It's natural.  But your sense of self worth deteriorates, your sense of being is diminished if you let the behavior of others define you.

The key we have found is that you can be loving, but loving with boundaries.  We must not confuse love with accepting bad behavior.  Jesus or the Archangels didn't cast the devil out by saying "It's ok.  I know you have caused havoc and evil everywhere, but go ahead and stay.  We love you anyway."  They set  boundaries and standards for their heaven and we should do the same.

When it comes to emotional abusers we can love who they really are - divine beings, but we don't have to love what they do.  Most of all you must learn not to let them define you or accept responsibility for their bad behavior.  When you realize this, you will free yourself from chains in your life you never knew existed.  You can then be brave enough to open your heart up, knowing you have secure boundaries set in place to protect your well being.  Now you are on your way to a new life and a new way of living.

Recommended reading:  Boundaries, by Dr. Henry Cloud