What saved me...1st 5 of my Top 10

So, how did I survive that?  Why am I not crazy or dead?

Here is the first half of the list of things/people that saved me: 

#1.  Saw an Angel:

I think it was during the summer I stayed with my grandparents to help my grandma clean the high school.  I was around 5 or so.  I was sleeping in the bed facing my grandmother’s bedroom door.  I remember, very clearly stirring and wakening because I saw a light…the light woke me up.  I opened my eyes and saw, on the landing at the top of the stairs, outside of the doorway…an angel.

 It looked very similar to this but it stood sideways.  It raised it’s hand to me and then disappeared.  I have shared this story with many people.  Some believe me, some do not. 

During my time in therapy and during my studies for my substance use counselling certification I came to understand that what saves many, many people from total despair and self-destruction:  the faith that some source greater than ourselves protects us from unseen harm real or imagined.  For some people this is “God,” for others it is a sense of ancestral spirit, and for still others it is a connection to energies outside of themselves from some other source. I remember hearing stories of abuse survivors who connected themselves to “fairies,” toys that came to life, or images in wall paper that would comfort them and protect them during abuse episodes. Our brain is truly miraculous.

So, I guess, ingredient #1 or one ingredient for resilience is:  feeling of connectedness to a greater energy, power, source that you believe, with all that is in you, it will protect you…save you – especially if you are a child going through trauma.

#2.  Music:

 – this one is going to have it’s own blog post….it shows up twice on my list. Lol.  Music would have been #1 on the list but I have never shaken the image of that angel in the doorway. 

Music has, however, remained with me as a way of crawling out of soul crushing despair from as long as I was able to choose my own music. 

I remember very clearly sitting in the dark basement listening to music, rocking in our old crushed velvet rocking chair, feeling as if my heart would never be the same.  Back then

(I think I was 10 or 11) Elton John, the Eagles, and Elvis made me feel better.  The only albums I knew how to buy were the mixed K-Tel albums offering the best of whatever top 40 was available to us at the time.  I was not yet old enough to know what music I really liked because it reflected my own taste but my parents and my aunt, who lived with us at the time, had great taste so I listened to what they had.

As I got older and chose my own music I discovered the power of words…again…and started writing out lyrics, posting them on my wall so I could always read them.

To this day my favourite artists are real, raw, and speak truth to power. 

Music has saved my life many, many times.

This video is from the show The Kids from Fame...loved this show.  This is one of the albums that saved me.

  

 The song: "I still believe in me"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#3.  Shame: 

I was too filled with shame to cause any more for my family by killing myself. 

I remember this very clearly:  I was 16, in Germany on an exchange, in excruciating emotional agony, holding a razor, ready to slit my wrists.  All I could think of was that my mother would be furious that I made such a mess. 

Of course I was being silly, my mother would have been devastated had I died in Germany, but in my mind I couldn’t bear to bring more agony to my parents who had been through so much already because of me.  I was getting really tired of disappointing them.  I just wanted to find ways to make them proud of me – and slitting my wrists in a resort communal bathroom in St. Peter-Ording, Germany was not going to do it.  So I started cutting instead. 

I guess a little healthy shame can be life-saving.

#4.  I was, really, too scared to die.

 I had fantasies that I had cancer or some other life threatening disease and always felt sad that I would never have children or get married.  I really wanted all of those things and suicide would take that away from me.  The more I thought about that, the less I wanted to die. 

I was convinced, deep in my heart in spite of how messed up I felt about myself, that someone, somewhere would love me for me – wounds and all. I believed it so deeply that it kept me from killing myself.  I am  so glad  it did.

#5.  Music…

That’s the 1^st half of my top 10 list of what saved me.

I wanna know.  What saved you?

The second half of the list will be up next week.

Thanks.  Blessed be you.

R