An Open letter to the Perpetrator dressed in Victims clothing

You know who you are, you are the one who preys on the empathic, the one who grooms and charms, the one who pretends and only gives glimpses of your real self when it is seemingly too late. The one who will blame the one you wound and pretend to limp away.

I know, I know, your life was/is so hard and unfair. You are not the victim, that is life, it is hard and often unfair. Many of us have sad childhood stories, incidents affect us, but most of us do not have to live there and use that to drag people to us. Most of us do not live our entire lives making crappy choices using the ‘but this happened to me when I was a child’ card.

You are not the victim when you make choices that negatively impact your life. Those were your choices, and choices have consequences. If you repeatedly make those choices and cry foul you are simply trying to elicit sympathy. Do be certain that you don’t play that card too many times with the same prey because at some point they will call you to accountability.

You are not the victim when someone calls you to accountability. Persons of character want what is best for others, and oftentimes that means calling someone to the carpet for their bullshit. We all get called to the carpet at some point, usually more than once. Man up, make the changes and learn. Anything else is crap and requires firmer boundaries to be set.

You are not the victim when someone sets boundaries with you. Boundaries are healthy, and a necessary response to unhealthy behavior. Every healthy relationship has boundaries, God himself is the author of boundaries. My boundaries say “This is where the bullshit stops, it may not go beyond this point in MY life.” They don’t say you can’t have your bullshit, they just say you can’t have it in my life. Get over it.

You are not the victim when you have behaved destructively and ultimately have what you thought you had concealed become revealed. You are not the victim when your purposely concealed sick secrets ooze out and make others go before the toxicity destroys them.

You are not the victim, these were your choices. And while I am sure there is another person who will fall into your trap of “poor me, life has been unfair and I am really just trying to do better”, playing the victim really only imprisons you to the same role over and over again. Your prison, your choice, just don’t expect sympathy.

You never get to be real or strong. You are trapped in the role you can only play for so long before the real you slips out of hiding releasing that toxic ooze that eats away at the world you have created. That toxic ooze that creates the real victims, the ones who you use until they become unrecognizable to themselves. But you, YOU are not the victim. The world may label you ‘narcissist’, ‘borderline’, ‘socio-path’ or any other number of APD’s, okay you ARE sick, but you are NOT a victim. Get over it.

DISCLAIMER: I am well aware that the ‘one’ this is addressed to is going to be ultimately unaffected (although probably while playing the victim) by this. I am okay with that, this is MY blog and I know I am not the only one who has wanted to say this 😉

Waiting In-Between

It’s anniversary time again, although this last year I realized how many of those I have throughout the entire year. This is the big one, December 22nd, three years since I was drawn out and seemed to have my entire world shatter around me. I consider that may be the reason I am so emotional lately, but I don’t think that’s the case. This year is different.

Yes, there is still hurt, healing is a process after all. But there has been hope and forgiveness, all on a learning curve. There has been promise and blessings and growth. I am not the same woman I was three years ago when I opened my door to the violent news of another’s actions that would alter my life. Not just my life but my boys, my friends, even to some degree my co-workers. No, this year I think the pain is growing pains.

This year has been ever changing, in my life, in the lives of my community and family, in our country (talk about trauma, the electoral race was insane and I already hate politics!). The world around me has moved at breakneck speed, and I am exhausted trying to keep up. I have felt lost in the in-between watching my close community move forward, knowing my call, and wondering where God is taking all of this. Blessed and cared for, but still sometimes alone and bewildered. Apprehensive, knowing more change is coming. Amazed, knowing God has given me dreams of a house and a ministry, but wondering when (and how) these dreams will come to fruition.

Part of me wants to charge forward, part of me fears racing ahead of God. In-between I sit, like a butterfly out of it’s chrysalis waiting for my wings to fill out and be strengthened. Hanging on a branch wondering, when do I fly? Fearing, what if I fall?

Maybe I shouldn’t fly at all.

Yet I am called to fly, maybe not at the moment I desire, but still called. And if I fall, the one who called me to fly will catch me, He always does. Nothing in this moment looks like what I had seen, but then it rarely does. Faith requires standing on the coastline, unable to see beyond the fog that has settled over the ocean, yet knowing the ocean is out there and the creator of the universe has it all under his control. Faith is knowing that when that fog lifts, my wings will be strong enough to fly.