I have just finished reading the book The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls. It was a very good book but also very difficult for me to read. She shares her story about being raised by two very dysfunctional parents. Her father was an alcoholic (known as the “town drunk”), and her mother was clearly mentally ill. So many things that her mother said to her came right out of the script of my own life, especially the comments about her mother needing to think about herself for once when that was all she ever did. Yes, I know that phrase all too well.
The most beautiful part of the book to me was a comment that Ms. Walls’ husband said when he first saw her physical scars. When the author was only three years old, she suffered severe burns when her outfit caught on fire as she was boiling her own hot dogs on a gas stove. (Her mother was always “too busy” to feed the children, even though she rarely held down a job.) She was hospitalized for several weeks and could have died from the injuries. She was left with burns along her side.
At the end of the book, the author writes the following about her husband’s reaction the first time she showed him her scars:
And when I first showed him my scar, he said it was interesting. He used the word “textured.” He said “smooth” was boring but “textured” was interesting, and the scar meant that I was stronger than whatever it was that had tried to hurt me. – Jeannette Walls in The Glass Castle: A Memoir
I cry every time I read that passage because this is so true about our emotional scars. Our scars are what add “texture” to our lives. They show that someone tried to hurt us, and they are evidence that we were stronger than the one who hurt us. While my emotional scars do not define me, they definitely shaped the person that I am today.
Someone told me about an interesting view of scars. I think this was said at a Promise Keepers convention, but I could be wrong. The speaker held up his hand and showed where a grenade had blown up in his hand. He said that scars have value for three reasons: (1) They show that you were wounded; (2) They prove that you survived; and (3) They earn you the right to say, “I have been where you are.”
I no longer hide my emotional scars. My refusal to pretend that I have no emotional scars might make some people uncomfortable, but most seem to appreciate this. I earned those scars, and I am not going to cover them up. Instead, I am going to use them to help as many people as I can.
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Yesterday, I wrote about the ambivalence that a child might feel toward his birth family after being adopted out of foster care on my professional blog, 
In my last couple of posts, I have been discussing my faith journey as I have wrestled with the question of where God was during my child abuse. In my 
In my last post, 
Many survivors of child abuse ask the question, “Where was God when I was being abused?” Some are unable to embrace a faith because they believe God betrayed them by failing to intervene. Others believe that child abuse is proof that there is no God because what kind of loving God would allow children to experience abuse?
One of the most frequently asked questions by child abuse survivors is “Why me?” What was it about me that made other people want to harm me? Am I fundamentally flawed? Did I bring this on myself? Why did my abusers choose to harm me?
I once told my therapist that my entire childhood was pure h@#$. He said that could not be true because, if it was, then I would not be the person that I am today. He said that while I definitely endured some horrendous trauma, I also experienced some good during my childhood. If I had never received love from anywhere, then I never would have learned how to love.
Many child abuse survivors ask the question, “Which type of child abuse is the worst?” I guess child abuse survivors want to figure out where they fall in the pecking order of pain. Some might want to reassures themselves that their abuse really was that bad while others are still trying to convince themselves that it wasn’t.
Many people who suffered ritual abuse were “programmed” to self-destruct if they ever revealed their abusers’ secrets. While people who never suffered from ritual abuse might believe this sounds like a bad plot in a science fiction movie, numerous survivors of childhood ritual abuse share the same story.
I have come to the realization that I still do not love my body. My feelings toward my body became distorted after a childhood filled with child abuse. I used to hate my body, but no longer feel that way. I believed that the absence of hatred was the same thing as loving my body, but I am realizing that it is not. While the cessation of hating my body was a huge positive step, it was not enough. I still need to learn to love my body.
Blooming Lotus 