Today, I was reading a book and I felt like I read my life in a paragraph about brainwashing. It said that people who are brainwashed have a difficult time discerning what is real and what is not. When that happens, the victim starts to lose their meaning for life and goes into states of panic. They actually need to go through a form of torture to reinforce negative consequences for non-conformity.
When I left my house to go to college, I couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t because for the longest time, my mother had been telling me what my reality was. Without her, I didn’t know how to tell what was real. That is a very scary place to be, and it is also very lonely. I understand now more than ever why I had a panic attack the first night I was away from home the first time, but more than that I understand why I engaged in self-harm.
I have spent the last thirty years trying to understand why I would hurt myself physically the way I did. I feel like it is the worst thing I have ever done in my life. If I ever did anything unforgiveable, then that act is the act that would be unforgiveable. That night, I was on the verge of realizing that everything was a lie and that my mother had spent the last eighteen years controlling every aspect of my life. The only problem was that I just couldn’t face the truth yet. My parents threatened me with physical punishment all the time, but they used emotional, mental, and verbal punishment on me. I decided to carry forward their threats and inflict the physical punishment in the hope that torturing myself would instill in me a desire or a will or whatever to conform to my mother’s reality. I tried and tried, but I just couldn’t do it. There’s been so many times in my life when I just wanted to live the lie and there’s been something inside of me that wouldn’t do it. I’ve cried because I wanted to take the easy way out and I just couldn’t. I always thought it was because I was weak, but people who hear my story say it is because of my strong will that I can’t take the easy way. I can’t live a lie. I guess no matter how much my mother tried to break me, there was always going to be a part of me that remained me that she couldn’t touch. That part would endure no matter how much I tortured myself. That part will continue to endure because it really doesn’t belong to me. It is that part of my heart that has the light of God. It’s that part of me that belongs to God and connects me to everything that ever was, everything that exists right now, and everything that will ever be. It is the part of me that gives my life meaning. No one can ever take that away from me.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
