October 26, 2015:

All I can continue to do is be grateful and thankful for the life that God has offered me. I am reading a book written by one of my child sexual abuse support group coordinators. It’s called Unlock the Door by Deb Maybury. I started reading it when I first got up this morning and got on the bus. I continued reading it on the subway and am going to start again now. It’s really a great book. As a compilation of survivor testimonies and stories of abuse, it gives hope to the survivor and information to others. There are two very important facts, which have stood out to me so far. At least these facts are issues that I have to constantly remind myself of or that we all have to remember. The first is that children are developing beings and need very much to be listened to. Just because they do not fully have the verbal tools of expression that we have does not make them any less important. They need to be and feel loved, nurtured and protected. They also need to feel as though they can trust people. The other thing I have picked up from this book so far was the fact that truly, the only way for people to heal from childhood sexual abuse (a situation in which a vulnerable, trusting and innocent child has been objectified and shamed by a dysfunctional relationship) is the need for healthy, loving and trusting relationships as they grow and heal. In my situation, I have done a lot of personal healing and recovery. I think that this is the last element in my recovery. To develop a healthy, loving and trusting relationship in which I can feel like a human being. Tonight, I am going to the Gatehouse to continue my own recovery. Tonight, I am so thankful that I have the opportunity to do the impossible while I am alive. I have the opportunity to fix my fucked up foot (excuse my language – nothing else will suffice). I have the opportunity to fix myself as a human being. I am learning again to love myself. And it has taken a long time for that to happen but it is so worth it. And I am not going to let Satan mess with me anymore. I am grateful for God’s mercy. I will continue to try my hardest. I will not give up. Life is worth living. And there is hope for the future. Continuation: I went to my Art Therapy program this evening. I have to say I was a little shamed going into it. The feeling of shame continued throughout most of the session. Our subject today was our inner critic. I created a collage about the core belief that I have that I am unlovable. I created a little pastiche of a creature out of the body parts of a bunch of different magazine clippings. I talked about how I felt a lot of shame, unworthiness and fear and anger. I talked about the fact that love and intimacy feels dangerous to me. Then I created another collage about what I envision what I would like to experience. In this, I started off with simply writing a bunch of words under a little cross. The words were loved, hopeful, faithful, worthy, forgiven and repentance. Under it, I affixed a magazine clipping of a boxer. I will not give up. I have a voice. And I am proud of that voice. Not just because of what it has seen and experienced. But because of what it has to say. I am thankful for my art therapy group. It was said best in group but I am thankful for their courage and resilience in attending every week and for making the commitment to heal themselves. I am thankful for their empathy and consideration. After, in Osgoode subway station, I saw a guy to whom I had given money in the past. I offered him ten dollars and he thanked me by name. It clicked that I had seen him a couple of weeks earlier and given him money then and introduced myself. On the bus ride home, I received a message from my art therapy coordinator. She gave me some of the details about her non-profit organization. I’ve been stretching and adjusting my ankle all day. Hopefully, it will pay off.