"...Forgive us our transgressions as we forgive those who transgress against us."

I decided to start this blog a few months ago, not really knowing where to begin. I still don't really know where to begin, so I'll just go where the Spirit leads me.

I'm an adult child of abusive parents. My mother was a narcissist, my father emotionally unavailable unless I acted like a son. I have one sibling, and she, too, was caught in this as our mother pitted us against each other as well as herself. Our family had all the classic dysfunctional traits and might even be described as a narcissistic family structure. A narcissistic family puts the needs of the parents first and the children become the primary mode of having those needs met.

I've been in therapy before. For 10 years after leaving the home for college, I saw no less than 4 therapists, including being on anti-depressants for 2 years. Therapy helped, some. But the problems remain. As part of my upbringing, I learned to put aside my feelings and needs in order to primarily meet my mother's needs. As a result, I would self-diagnose myself with Narcissistic Personality Disorder of the compensatory flavor (characterized by avoidance and passive-aggressive behavior). Contrary to what many think concerning narcissism, the narcissist is frequently not obsessed with self-love, but in my case, self-hatred. In my own estimation, this self-hatred stems from a deep hatred of my mother which I developed because of the abuse. My mother worked to make me into a smaller version of her. Being like her, I in turn learned to hate myself. Moreover, I learned from the constant denial of feelings and needs that my feelings and needs did not matter. I learned to be manipulative, dissociative, passive-aggressive, codependent, self-loathing, selfish, and down-right mean in an attempt to make sense of my non-nonsensical family experience.

My mother would do things like threaten to put myself and my sister into foster homes for not complying in daily chores, or threaten suicide if we did not assure her that she was a "good" mother. She would constantly praise me for compliance, punish me for even disagreeing with her, praise my sister in one area while demeaning me in another (and vice versa), look to me to help "calm" my father and to fix their relationship, "counsel" her in relationship matters, physically abuse us, seek to instill unhealthy eating habits to justify her own coping mechanisms to life, irrupt into violent and condemning fits of rage (toward the children), and in general use her lack of approval as punishment to control both myself and my sister.

My father was passive, excessively so, emotionally unavailable (unless you were talking about his personal interests), often daydreaming, also engaged in fits of anger and rage, and in general, left the parenting to my mother whose "job" the child rearing fell on.

The church I grew up in was spiritually dead. Excessively focused on God's law without overt connection to grace and forgiveness, Sunday mornings were sessions where all of the church would come out to nod their heads in agreement, further reinforcing the message that we as children were to obey without question. Jesus became both the Good Shephard and the "eye in the sky" looking at all your sins waiting to use them against you (after all, that's what all "good" and "normal" parents do...at least as far as I knew). I know now that Jesus is not at ALL like that "eye in the sky" guy we were taught, but the scars of a dysfunctional family powered with the authorization from a dysfunctional church run quite deep.

As a Christian, I know my calling now is forgive as Christ has forgiven me. He has forgiven me for all my manipulative behavior, my rash decisions, my unjustified anger, my bitterness, my lies, my failures, my selfishness--but I don't feel it. In part, because I have not fully repented (that is, to have a new mind, a change of mind, a change of heart) concerning my actions, thoughts, and emotions. In part, it is because I know no other way to think or feel or act. It is also because I cannot forgive myself. And I cannot forgive myself, as of yet, because I cannot forgive my parents who did what they did and taught me to do what I do. At age 30, I should have moved on from this long, long ago. But like most abused children, I learned to live in denial, an alternate version of myself and my family in which there was no abuse, and I got to play people pleaser without my needs being met or my feelings expressed.

So, to close quickly here as it is late, my calling as a Christian is to forgive. To forgive, even this abuse and extend Christ's love to parents who don't even understand the Gospel even though they went to church their entire lives. There are days when I think I can get to that place, I know I can get to that place. But some days, it's barely all I can stand to get through the day. And there is so much to mourn. The loss of childhood, the pain from the past, the utter wastefulness of my life, the---the everything. And if I had answers, I'd tell you. But I don't. And the only place I know I'll find them is from God, and sometimes, the only answer I get is lie in the palm of His hand and be broken.

But you gotta admit you're broken before any healing can happen. And even as I lie there broken, I know He'll heal me. I know He already has. Yet, the call to forgive is the goal. It's the next step in the long trek of baby steps ahead. And I cannot think of the long journey or I'll turn away. So, for tonight, I'll think on the healing that has already happened and think toward forgiveness. Because that is the next step.

Why Miriam of Numbers?

Two reasons:

1--I'm in the process of reading Numbers at the moment. It seemed appropriate.

2--I'm a master-level complainer. Numbers is all about the Israelites complaining in the Wilderness. Many died because they were foolish and did not focus on God's blessings as well as His constant Provision, Protection, and His Word. Because of their lack of faith and their fear of the reports from the spies who scouted out Israel, because the Israelites were afraid and did not faithfully follow God's instructions, they would never see the Land promised to them.

Complaining and bitterness are not small matters to God. They're not easily placed to the side either. A life of bitterness and complaining and depression. These are the things I have wrestled with.

And only God can heal.

Greetings.

I've had several blogs over the years and this one is well, unique. I'm writing as an outlet for dealing with the growing pains of a newly rekindled Christian faith. A faith that was lost of a multitude of reasons. All of them, ultimately my fault and my rebellion against who God was trying to show me I was, and my constant battle with phantoms of the mind.

So, this blog is about that.

Not everyone I know will get a link to this blog, so if you're one of the few, count yourself lucky. I've done so because you will probably understand more than most. That said, some names have been changed to protect the innocent. Who they were, isn't really that important anyhow. Where I screwed up, that's all needed to know and filling in history is kind of required sometimes.

My goals are to be brutally honest and work toward articulating whatever the Lord needs me to articulate which might come quick or not so quick when dealing with my razzled brain. In other words, pardon the wordiness of it all.

I'll always accept prayer requests. Feel free to send 'em on over: blog.miriam@yahoo.com.

God bless and keep on walking. One step at a time.