THIS IS MY STORY, AND I AM STICKING TO IT

I'm a survivor of sexual, emotional and verbal abuse. The sexual abuse was molestation and it happened when I was 5 years old by a friend of the family which I've never seen again after that day; the emotional and verbal abuse was by my father (mainly aimed at my mom, but sometimes aimed at me as well) and later on by my one and only boyfriend I've ever had. 

 

I'm 32, and I've been going through the healing process and I'm not all the way there yet. I've never felt comfortable with any feelings of adoration or love for the opposite sex. Whenever I would even find myself liking someone even just a little bit I would completely freak out.  I always thought that love would just not be a part of my life. With every rejection I experienced, and with every word from society and my family of how no man would want me because I was too this or too that...it just reiterated that point. A few years ago, God put a deep spiritual connection in my heart with a man. I didn't even know him or anything about him, and the spiritual energy was just there. Although the experience of getting to know him should have been an exciting experience that I looked forward too, I did everything in power to sabotage any hope of us even being friends, in an effort to protect myself from love or being hurt again; after all, I had resigned myself to being alone and never having love as part of my life. I wasn't sure I trusted men anyway, so maybe I was just better off without that. Needless to say, while I was fighting to protect myself, God was fighting to draw me into walking in love and that would be the only thing that would heal me. Since I was trying so hard to protect myself and since I felt the spiritual connection so strong with him, and since it made me so uncomfortable the way he would look at me (which wasn't vulgar or disrespectful, just in a way to suggest that he thought I was beautiful) I went overboard trying to protect myself and began to be mean to him. As I started to reach out to other believers (mostly women) who I was sure would understand how I felt, I not only found that they didnt, I found that they actually thought that I was going after him...which infuriated me. 

 

It's been a number of years now and the pain not only of having had to go through sexual, emotional and verbal abuse, but also of feeling fear about love and of love for as long as I can remember, and also of being so grossly misunderstood to most people that I've ever even tried to reach out to including my own therapist, has caused so much anger, pain and anxiety in my life. I think it's quite possible that I may have pushed away my only chance at real true love, and at the same time I'm still so afraid of the idea of really loving someone and being vulnerable with them. I don't trust men and I'm not comfortable being vulnerable with them at all. I don't feel there's any human being that really understands how I feel and that is sooo painful. I'm so angry at them for not understanding even though I know it isn't their fault.

 

I've wanted to leave my church, leave God, become a drug addict, a sex addict an alcoholic, a demoniac, anything to desensitize from the pain. I came into the body of Christ with wounds I thought would be healed, and instead they were infected. I don't know what to do. I don't trust anyone anymore...not just men, anyone...and I don't know if I'll ever be able to bring myself to really love someone . . . I don't know if this will ever get better.  

 

Then came Evangelist LaWanna Harrod who walked into my life out of nowhere and at one of the lowest points.  Minding my own business, she began to talk to me like she had known me all her life.  I thank my God that she took the time to talk to me for hours.  She began to see and speak into some places I had sealed up.  I want to take this time to say thanks for what you do.

 

~ Name withheld by request