Tearing Down The Brick Wall

Most of the women my mom helped suffered abuse at the hands of their husbands, fathers, and in some cases, boyfriends and even their mothers.  I specifically remember a teenage girl that my mother took under her wing because of the horrible abuse she received at the hands of her mother.  She became like a sister to us and to this day remains an active part of our family.  Other women, did not come from abuse, they simply needed a fresh start, a family to love and support them; my house provided that as well.  You must be wondering if my mother had the qualifications it takes to help these women.  Hmmm that depends on what you mean by qualifications; a professional degree? no … a heart that loves unconditionally? Yes.  I think it has something to do with the fact that she could relate to some of these woman’s pain, that made her so efficient in helping them.  You see my mother’s mother suffered from mental illness, consequently, when my mom was a few months old she was adopted by her aunt.  This was not the best situation for her.  She then got married at a very young age and was not able to finish high school.  After that, she endured emotional abuse for almost 20 years.   So when it comes to pain and suffering, she has a PHD. LOL

These are the key things I learned by the brave woman my mother helped throughout the years.  They were:

• Survivors: They never gave up, they removed themselves from a bad situation and sought healing.   

• Determined: I saw women that were destined for the streets, turn their life around and become hard working women giving back to society.
• Forgiving: Many of them forgave their abusers and refused to allow hate ruin their destiny.
• Spiritual: the most important of all, every one of these women became devoted Christians.

Along with the good lessons I learned by seeing women get back on their feet and claim their life, there were also some underlined distorted messages I recievied as well.  Being young and impressionable; the surrounding situations affected me in good ways as well as not so good ways.  All of these situations helped to feed my distrust and fears.  I began to build walls so that I would not go thru what I saw so many go through.  Every brick for my wall had a name; be strong, stay in control, don't allow anyone to humiliate or mistreat you. We all create our own defense mechanism to cope with things we don’t understand.  This mind frame took some time and work on my part to break.  What I didn’t want was to carry that“distortion” into my marriage and have it affect the rest of my life. 

During my forth year or so of my courtship with Oscar its when I began to notice these insecurities show up.  I became defensive and overly afraid of being hurt.   I remember telling Oscar often, that I didn't need him, that my life would be just fine without him.   So much so, that one day Oscar confronted me, at that point I realized I was carrying borrowed baggage.  I told Oscar about my upbringing and asked him to help me.  I told him not allow me to bring this into our relationship and to call me on it.  In other words to help me bring down the brick wall.  Slowly but surely we began that journey, even before we got married.  I'm a firm believer in "good" premarital counseling, it helps with the things that are difficult to confront. 

Today, I'm a confident woman, far from perfect, but I know my role as a wife.  I thank God for the role models he put in my way to draw inspiration from.  If you can relate to his blog, its not too late to live your best life.  Find healing at all cost, life is too short to live behind a brick wall.  Take it from me, the other side of the wall is where you'll find the peace and happiness you long for.