To ride a raging sea.........

Today I feel Rage
I am enraged
I have rage
I will rage
The rage wells and ebbs and flows inside me
and today it is seeping out.

I always feel like I am on the other side, no longer affected by a decade+ long journey of being in a domestically emotionally abusive and violent relationship. That is until it rears it's ugly head and the rage comes and burns in my veins, fills my soul with these pits of fiery anger.. After being expressed it silently and surely ebbs away, with me assuming this is the last time it will show its very ugly head (until the next time).

I had a situation come up with my ex regarding our children and him allowing them to spend time with an inappropriate person amongst a few other issues in regards to actually looking after them and their health and wellbeing over this last weekend. All of a sudden this pit in my belly started to rise and turn and spark and fire up and bam, I was right back where I was 3yrs ago, looking at this man that I had once loved and had children with but on the other hand loathed with all my being, and it enraged my soul to see the behaviour had not changed and now my children were being subjected to it.

He called me ridiculous (as always), said I was jealous (as the other party was a woman) and made me actually step back and question my behaviour (always making me doubt myself), I wont even go into him physically threatening me. So I sat. In my rage, I moved through my day, I met my sister for a coffee, I shopped for my children's new school shoes, I made their lunches and I just sat with this feeling in my heart and allowed it to evolve so I could understand what was really going on.

What I came to realise is I was in Rage. At him rightly so, the situation being not acceptable, be it a man, woman or animal, my children need him to step up as a Father when he is in that role and my jealousy was actually non existent. I realised he always made me question myself. He always made me feel badly about my reactions. He always incited rage in my soul with his own behaviours but never allowed me to speak my truth.

And then I realised He did all this because I allowed it and the Rage I was feeling was really at myself.

When I met this man I was young, free, and had an entire life ahead of me
He took me and moulded me.
He beat me, he belittled me and he turned me into a shadow of myself.
And I allowed it.
He hurt me, he shamed me and he made me feel unloved and unlovable.
And I allowed it.
He took the sweetest, happiest, kindest parts of me and would cut me down until
I either stopped or would only subserviently behave the way he felt appropriate,
and on occasion I became black and bitter and acted as such, just like him,
And I allowed it.

I am in Rage
I am raging that this man is still allowed space in my life
I am enraged that I bore beautiful children to his man and his revolting soul gets to help shape who they become, and when I see parts of his bad behaviour shine through in them every part of my body screams.
I am in rage because all the soft, feminine, loving parts of me hide away in the deepest corners of my heart and although desperately need love are so scared of it I shy away from it.
I rage because when a man moves towards me I involuntarily step back, or move or tense awaiting a  hurt that will not come.
I am enraged because I was told for 10yrs that I had an ugly heart, soul, mind and body and I believed all of it. I stopped loving myself and never thought I would be loveable to anyone else.
I rage because some days I feel hard and impenetrable and alone, like a defenseless Mama bear with her two cubs facing off against a band of hunters holding guns.
And it hurts, it hurts that sometimes I feel my good, sweet, loving heart has been wasted
and maybe I will never get a chance to know the love of a good man who will not squash me into small spaces to make him feel better about his own inadequacies. 

And then, right at the very centre of this rage is unadulterated sadness, because I allowed this life to happen, to myself. Not anymore.

I embrace the rage, the raging river of emotion of who and how I have become who I am and I recognise it as growth. It is ok for me to speak my truth and walk my talk and be radiantly who I am without questioning it because of him. I am a Mama Bear protecting her cubs and that is ok. Don't get me wrong, he's a good guy (his bad behaviour being an offshoot of aspergergers), and a very likeable nice guy. He is a good Dad more often than not and I appreciate his presence in the children's lives. But this time he was not and it was absolutely my right to not only question it but to demand better.

Anyone who has been in a physically or emotionally abusive or toxic relationship will know what I am talking about, please know from me to you, eventually the Rage will fade and the fire will die and a bit like how sand is made into glass from heat something beautiful will be born..

This rage is righteous and raw and real and it is me. It is positivity and growth and healing in motion.. I don't need to rage against anything just face the storm and know that it will wash everything clean