Perception is not reality

    This post talks about a lie my coach worked very hard to get me and everyone around me to believe.  There is a bit of redemption in this post though.  This is my twenty-seventh post.  Twenty-seven was my coach's favorite number.  He gave me a necklace once with that number on it.  It had personal significance to him.  Now it has personal repulsiveness to me.  I literally hate the number twenty-seven.  I was thankful that when I was twenty-seven years of age, God blessed me with a child to ease the dread I felt as that year approached.  Now, I reach my twenty-seventh post...a post about breaking free from a lie my coach served up on a silver platter, that I spent too many years believing.  No more.  Post number twenty-seven...one more chain broken.

     My coach used to frequently say "perception is reality."  He said it to all of us on the team, but he particularly said it to the older girls, namely those of us in middle school.  He would explain that what people perceived to be true is what they believed to be true, so what they perceived was reality.  To us kids, it sounded really cool and made sense enough.  We bought into it.  We believed it.  I believed it.  And I didn't know how much I believed it until over 15 years later.
     My coach fully believed this when he said it.  He wanted those around him to believe it too.  He created a perception of himself that he needed others around him to buy into in order for him to get what he wanted...me.  This saying of his really played off of people's natural tendency to bring their own perceptions and preconceived notions to any given situation or circumstance.  I couldn't see the manipulation in it until almost a year ago, and even now I struggle to understand it all and how someone could so carefully construct an environment where that kind of thing went unnoticed for years.
   
     But here's the thing...

Perception is NOT reality!

     About a year ago, I first realized how incredibly manipulative and calculated he was in his use of that phrase and setting up the reality he wanted others to perceive in order to get his way.  As time has gone on though, I have come to understand how deeply I have held on to that lie of his and how not true it really is.  

     

     In every situation and circumstance I encounter, I bring my own perspective, ideas, and beliefs.  I let those perceptions color how I view the situation or circumstance.  I may, for example, get cut off in traffic.  I bring my own beliefs about how one should drive and who drives the way the other person did, that I make judgments about what is real in the situation.  I perceive the driver to be a jerk and careless and inconsiderate.  But I don't have the whole truth.  I may not be aware that the person is rushing through traffic to make it to the hospital where a loved one has been taken following a life threatening accident.  The person is not a jerk or careless or inconsiderate.  They are scared out of their mind and preoccupied with awful thoughts and questions.  They are in a situation that deserves compassion not judgement and anger.  My perceptions were not reality.  They were a version of reality, but they were not the full reality.

     My feelings can also alter my perception of what is real in a situation.  For example, a friend could say something in a conversation that I found hurtful though she did not intend to hurt me and did not know I may react like that.  Given the past I have, I assume I have done something wrong to make my friend mad at me.  My feelings color my perception of the conversation, and I believe I have angered my friend somehow.  What I perceive to be true, is not actually reality.  My friend just made a comment without realizing it would cause me pain.  I never made her mad.  My perceptions were not reality.

     This also comes into play with God.  It is so easy on this journey to feel like God is far away, that He has left me all alone, that He doesn't care.  Those feelings, those perceptions, are not reality.  No matter what I feel or think, God has promised to be with me.  How I feel on any given day does not change this.  Anything I perceive that is the opposite of Him being with me is not reality, no matter how real it feels.  No matter what I think or feel, God says He cares about me, and He loves me.  I cannot lose that.  It is mine not by my own merit but because He loved me from the beginning of time.  My perceived feelings about His love and care do not tell the reality of His love for me on those dark days when I feel abandoned.  When I feel He couldn't possibly love me and doesn't care one bit, my perceptions are not reality.  

     In day to day life, in situations and circumstances that involve other people, it is so hard to keep my perceptions from coloring my view of things.  I don't always have the other side to the situation.  I can't always find out the side of reality I can't see from my vantage point.  Sometimes, my perceptions are all I have.  Other time, what is real is so different from how I have perceived things to be that it is hard to accept what is reality when I find it out.  It just isn't easy to remember that my perceptions are not always right when other people are involved.  I try to remember, though, and to hold my perceptions loosely.

     God gives me a weapon against my perceptions of Him.  He gives me His promises, His truth, that will always fight the lies my perceptions try to tell me.  When I feel He is far from me, that He has walked away and left me in my darkness and hurt, I have His word and the promises that He will always be with me to fight what I perceive to be reality with what really is reality.  This is one of the best gifts He has given me on this journey...His truth to fight the lie that perception is reality.

My perceptions of God cannot nullify His promises to me.  

He is faithful to His promises whether I perceive Him to be or not.

Perception is NOT reality!

     Let us all remember, in any circumstance we are in, there are other perspectives, other truths, other sides to each story that must be mixed with our own perspective and perceptions in order to see the full reality. Hold your perceptions loosely. Remember what you perceive to be true may not be reality at all.

     My precious sisters, there is tremendous hope and comfort in this! What we perceive to be true, is not always so. Cling to His promises, especially when they scratch and chafe against the perceptions you hold in the moment. Take comfort in knowing that what you perceive to be reality really isn't. He is still with you, even when you feel alone. He still loves you more deeply than you can imagine, even when you feel discarded. It won't change your feelings. I won't pretend that it makes it easier. Sometimes, though, it brings a peace and comfort in the harsh darkness that helps you press on. His promises push through your perceptions, dear one. They always will.

Denial, noise, truth...ramblings

     A fair warning...this is a lot of rambling.  It goes down a few rabbit trails and seemingly different paths, but if you'll be patient and stick it out, I think I can tie it all back together the way it is in my head.  The all over the place nature of this post is just where my head is.  I'm sorry for that.  I hope you'll be willing to keep reading to see how it all comes together and hopefully makes sense.    

     It's a new year.  People like to make new year's resolutions to make each year better than the one before.  It's more a formality than anything realistic though.  Resolutions are made knowing they will be broken, yet we still like the hope we feel in formulating a plan to make changes and live life on our terms.
     Life doesn't live on our terms though.  We wind up facing circumstances that are messy and hard and ugly and broken.  We end up torn between what we had planned and what is unfolding before us.  We find ourselves at the mercy of truth, and sometimes what is true is what we never wanted or asked for.  So we try to escape the truth we didn't want because that somehow feels more comfortable and more in control (even though we aren't).

     I have spent more years than I care to count trying to escape a truth I never asked for, never wanted, never had a say in.  I grew up with heavy secrets to keep.  I had to leave a room where the unspeakable took place and enter a world where I was "normal" and "fine" and just like every other kid I was around.  So I learned very quickly and rather young how to deny the truth of my life even while knowing what the truth was.  Denial became my truth without my ever knowing it.  Denial meant I survived.  It was good and necessary in those years that the truth tried to kill me.
     Life is different now all these years later.  I'm not living in the nightmare I once was trapped in.  In fact, the tides have turned.  The truth that would have killed me then is what now can bring me freedom.  The denial that was necessary for me to keep living, now keeps me from healing.  But moving past denial is proving to be a terribly difficult fight...denial is a vicious and ruthless opponent.

     I'm sure you must think it strange to talk about being in denial.  After all, when we think of denial, we think of holding fast to a lie that something did not happen when in fact it did.  That is denial, but that just scratches the surface of it.  I don't have the ability right now to explain it all, but I will try to briefly explain the denial I am battling at the moment.
     I do not deny that the abuse I endured happened.  If asked if I was abused as a child, I would shake my head yes.  I keep my distance from it though.  I minimize it.  I do it without thinking.  I've been doing it so long I don't know I'm doing it.  I hold my past at a distance, refusing to let it be real.  I will shake my head in agreement that it happened, but I cannot let the words escape my mouth.  That makes it real.  There are words I have in my head that I know are part of my story, but they are so awful and repulsive that I actively look for definitions anywhere that will define them out of what happened to me.  I know what applies as truth to my story, but I won't accept the truth.
     Not accepting what is true as true and minimizing the parts I will admit to is another level of denial that I am losing my fight with.  It's a fight I can't afford to lose though.  I have to win this fight if I am going to find healing.  But I am stuck, going in circles with denial while feeling truth pull at me, quietly requesting I sit and rest from the dizzying circles I dance with denial.  My feet keep moving though, and I feel the tension rise between denial and truth.  I know I have to be honest with my truth to myself in order to take my truth honestly to the One who can redeem it.

     As I dizzy myself with denial, truth keeps finding ways to make her presence known.  The last few months as I have struggled greatly feeling stuck and falling into some rather deep, dark pits that I wasn't sure I could get back out of, I have had this noise in my head grow louder and louder.  The more I see the denial I am stuck in and realize even more how badly I need out, the louder the noise gets.  It is particularly loud in the evenings when the house is quiet and my family is settled in for the night...deafening, frightening, always there.  It isn't audible noise, but the word noise is the best description I have for this stuff inside my head.  
     I'm not completely sure of what is in the noise.  There is a mix of a lot of things.

• there are words...inexpressible, and sometimes incomprehensible, words
• there are feelings...but I don't do feelings, I just DON'T
• there are tears...liquid terror, instant anxiety attack
• there is truth...all the truth I have not yet accepted
• there is _________...more that I don't have words for or can't understand yet

     And the noise is relentless!  It leaves me restless every evening, moving about my house on edge.  I know I should listen to it little bits at a time.  I know it has a purpose.  There is something or lots of somethings in my head, making all this noise, that need to be heard, spoken, felt, grieved, walked through, but I want nothing more than to drown it out.  It screams at me, so I scream louder with meaningless, mindless activity every night to ignore what is begging for my attention.

     Then I struggle desperately to fall asleep.  My mind refuses to unwind, to settle, to quiet.  My body, tense with the fight between the noise screaming at me and me screaming over it, refuses to relax.  Sleep is a fight which drains me instead of refreshing me.  My body begs for sleep, but my mind won't let up until my body empties itself of all it has, and my mind is forced to shut down.  Then sleep comes but never rest.
     The noise fights to be heard.  It knows it holds the truth.  But I'm terrified of what it has to say.  I don't know how to listen to it.  I can't understand the screams.  I cannot sit still.  I fear the noise will break me if I knew what it wanted.  What if it wants more than I have to give?  My stores are already so depleted.  So I pray and read Scripture and seek to be filled, but the noise just wants more and more and more.

God I am empty!  I know You can see!  Can You see I am empty?

     Now it's a new year.  I see more clearly than I ever have how entrenched in the mire of denial I am.  I know now more than ever how desperately I need to face the truth.  It's a battle.  It's raging fiercely within me every.single.day.  

     Denial spins me around while the noise screams at me that truth must be heard and walked through.  I know that I will not have to walk through it alone.  I know somehow God will meet me in it.  I know He is there waiting for me, for He is the God of truth.  Yet still each day, I drown out the noise as I dance with denial and truth tugs at my heart to just sit and be still.

     So this year, I have a goal (for lack of a better word).  I want to learn to listen to the noise.  I want to sit down with my truth and begin to accept it, piece by piece.  It will mean learning how to hear what is true, feel what is true, speak what is true, grieve what is true, walk through what is true, all while clinging to the God of truth who promises to be with me in the pain of what is true.  I know it will not be easy.  I know it will be a process and involve a lot of hard work.  This year, I want to find God with me in the terror of truth and learn, in the midst of all the hurt, to rest in His arms of love and comfort.  I know the only way to healing is through the hurt of truth.  As much as this terrifies me, I press on.

If you want to walk with me

     This post is meant for those who are not survivors themselves but have survivor friends walking out the journey towards healing.  I don't know much about relationships or friendships.  I haven't really had much practice to be honest.  I have been walking this journey though.  As I have walked this road, I have started to learn what is helpful for me.  As I have begun to learn what is helpful as I press on, I have also thought a lot about those who start to walk with me only to walk away.
     I have said before that many have walked away over the years.  Some have walked away from me completely while others are still friendly but steer clear of anything of substance in order to avoid what they know is deep in my heart.  Both types of walking away are painful.  I struggle with it every time it happens which is more often than not.  It seems to me that there is one overarching factor in why people who seem so genuine in their care and desire to walk this road with me soon walk away or pull back sharply.
     This post puts those thoughts out of my head and into words, written words for others to see.  It scares me though.  It feels so out of character for me.  I don't stand up for what is helpful for me, for what I need.  I have gone back and forth for days and days about whether or not to post this at all.  It feels wrong to say what I will say in this post, but I believe that this is part of learning how to use the voice that was taken from me, MY voice.  I also think it is information that should be considered by all who are not survivors but want to walk with a survivor.

     Here is how it seems to happen.  I throw out a few hints of my past and the journey I'm on.  When someone hears my story, even just parts of it, they feel a tug at their heartstrings.  Abuse is an awful thing of course.  This pull on the heartstrings leads many, I think, to want to do something.  Not knowing exactly what to do, they offer their support, their friendship, their willingness to "be there" for me as I pursue healing.  It looks like compassion, but I fear it is often times more along the lines of thinly veiled pity.  I, however, put up the deposit and let them in.  I know it will cost me, but I hope the cost is worth it.  A friend is such a treasure on a journey that is often quite lonely.
     At first, they are there.  They start off strong, and their friendship is a comfort on a hard and difficult road.  But as time goes on, they are there less often.  They seem irritated or distant.  I never seem to heal fast enough, and they get burnt out, usually rather quickly.  They tell me they've done all they can or that I know what I need to do and we no longer need to bring this up, I can do it on my own.  The look of what initially appeared to be compassion turns to a look of emptiness since the compassion was pity, and pity runs out.  I didn't heal like they thought I would.  More than that, they didn't know walking with me would cost them too, and now that they do, they realize they weren't willing to pay the price.  They forget how big God is when they see how big hurt can be.

     I want you to know this.  It certainly costs me to let others near enough to be a friend on this journey, but there is a price you pay for walking with me too.  It will cost you time.  The journey is not a fast one.  It will cost you a comfort you didn't know you had as you come face to face with statistics that now belong to someone you care about.  You will see me, hear of evil you knew existed but never thought much about, and those numbers you hear about will seem a lot closer than they ever have before.  You will see that there are far more of me much closer to you than you realized.  It is an uncomfortable reality to face to say the least.  It will cost you ease as you realize you must fight with me and for me on your knees, helping me carry a burden I simply cannot carry on my own though I have tried and tried again.  It will cost you pain.  If you stick with me, you will get weary and tired, and your heart will hurt as you see me struggle with my past as I press on to my future.  You will find hurts in your own heart you have not taken the time to find healing for (since you likely didn't know you needed healing) and that will cause you pain of your own also.  It will cost you the box you try to fit God into.  It's so easy to put God in a box.  I do it too.  But as you walk with someone whose wounds are so deep, your box will be too small for the God who can bringing healing to such depths.  It is challenging to have that box shattered.  I know.  He's been shattering my box this entire journey.  This is a good cost, but it is not pain free and is so vital to count.  If you aren't willing to give up your box to keep God small, you won't be able to walk with me.
     I can try to explain the cost to you in words, but the price is much higher than I can adequately describe.  While the price is high, the reward is great too, but you must be willing to see your investment to the end.  I am not sure if you can get your cost back should you choose to walk away.  I know I can never get back the price I pay to let you walk with me.  That is what makes it so frightening to let you near me.  I can't make you stay.  I can tell you that if you keep pressing on with me, the return for your investment will be worth far more than you can dream.  If you see this through, you and I both will have a reward well worth the price we both pay.
   

If You Want to Walk With Me

You say you want to journey with me as I go

But first there are realities that you must know

Don't be shocked when your willingness I fail to believe

Because there's a price that I pay which you cannot see

If you want to walk with me

The price that I pay is costly and steep

And once it is paid can never come back to me

But I'm not the only one with a high price to pay

For there's a cost to you also to journey this way

If you want to walk with me

Your eyes will be opened to a harsh reality

Well known to all though most choose not to see

Where darkness and evil reign without limitation

And you'll wish you could believe my truth is mere fiction

If you want to walk with me

The lifeless statistics that you've always known

Will begin to take on a life completely their own

While the endless numbers turn into the faces

Of those who you love in your deepest heart places

If you want to walk with me

At times the path will leave you beaten and bruised

You'll wonder how much longer you have to push through

For this journey is long and each step is a fight

And the road presses straight through the darkest of nights

If you want to walk with me

My burden is heavy and can leave you quite weary

Time spent on your knees will leave you hurting and bloody

But your company is a treasure I won't take for granted

And there is great hope the return for your cost will be worth it

If you want to walk with me

     When you feel the tug on your heartstrings as you hear the story of a survivor, you just have to step back and decide whether or not you really want to invest.  Take time to consider whether you feel compassion or pity because your pity won't last, but compassion is good fuel for the journey.  I do not know a single survivor who takes lightly the friendship of those who choose to walk with them.  I also do not know a single survivor who does not know the pain of being walked away from.  We know it isn't easy to walk this road with us.  That is why we treasure those who stick with us even when it's dark and difficult and slow going.  We really do believe this journey is worth it or we wouldn't be working so hard at it.  If, after you have considered the cost, you're willing to invest, we trust it will be worth it for you too in the end.