I think this post is likely going to come across sad and hopeless, but please stick with me. There will be another post coming in the next few days or so that will bring hope to this post. So please read but also remember...hope is coming!
Something happens when a child is abused. It happens from the very first instance of abuse regardless of whether that abuse is brought about through words or hands. I'm not sure how it happens, but I am certain it does. So what happens? The child becomes invisible. They are desperate for help, for rescue, for safety, for hope, but it almost never comes because suddenly no one can see them. I know. I remember when I became invisible.
I was 13. I'm sure my coach had been setting the stage for a while, but I remember vividly when it started and got serious. It started with words. I don't remember them exactly, though I do remember the conversation and what he was talking about. I also remember changing that very instant. I couldn't put my finger on it then, but I can now. I became invisible, and I could feel it. I now had a secret. I was now touched with shame. I needed help, but I could not ask for it. I didn't have words for what was happening. I'm not sure how it all happened specifically. I felt the difference, but no one around me could see it. Somehow I disappeared, and no one came looking for me.
Invisible
A world full of people but no one can see
The girl living among them with dark secrets deep
She needs someone's help but on her own she can't say so
And her help will never come because she's become invisible
At school her teachers say their doors are always open
But she's afraid of what it will cost her if she were to walk in
With good grades they don't see her, that she's slipping away
So when school's over, they send her home as she dies more each day
At home she has parents but life is not okay
Their marriage breaking, her silence a huge price to pay
Because they are too busy with the hurts that they bear
To see that their daughter, though present, is no longer there
She kept growing up but she never outgrew
Whatever kept her invisible and always out of view
But the sting of loneliness never went away
Instead it became her companion day by day
A world full of people but still no one can see
The one standing in the midst of them waiting to be seen
She is out in plain sight but they can't see...me
While the cloak of invisibility is forced on a child when abuse begins, it doesn't automatically come off when it stops. I never stopped being invisible. Even now, many years later, no one looks for me when I hide or disappear or don't show up. I'm forgettable which keeps me invisible. There is one or two people who look for me, but that's not the norm. I'm still invisible.
But invisibility pulls me in two different directions. Part of me wants to stay invisible. There is a strange comfort there. It feels safe when nothing else does. It's lonely though, so at times I wish I could be seen. I've been invisible for so long, though, that I'm not sure how to change that. I do know it would be risky. If people could see me, they would see my secret. That thought is enough to push me back into the safety of invisible. But then I get lonely and wish I could be seen, and that scares me. Do you see the struggle?
Being invisible doesn't mean I don't know anyone or have no friends or never leave my house. I do, but sometimes the loneliest place to be is in a room full of people...quiet because I'm not sure how to fit in and never spoken to because I'm invisible to those who are there.
Look Through Me
When they look through me they look past a wife
Nothing to notice, no need to look twice
Just a woman standing by the one who loves her
Overlooked and invisible, never someone to remember
When they look through me they look past a mom
Trying to gather my noisy kids, they want me gone
Exhausted and worn by the daily tasks
Of pouring into my children and caring for me last
When they look through me they look past a friend
Someone to listen when their world's crashing in
Someone to care for them when life hits roughest
Even though when I'm not there they never notice
When they look through me they look past a woman
Small, scared, and broken, convinced I am less than
Longing for a friend who sees past all they look through
But going it alone because that's how I've made due
When they look through me they don't see what they miss
A chance to be the hands and feet of Jesus
To reach out to the forgotten, to the very least of these
And bearing my burden with me, a chance to see the broken redeemed
It hurts to be invisible, to always be forgotten. My sweet survivor sisters, I want you to know that I see you. I pray for you. I hold you in my heart even when I don't know your name. I have not forgotten you even when I don't actually know you. But as hopeless as it seems being invisible, hold on my dear ones. There is One who sees us when no one else can and when no one else wants to.
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