enabling......

lately, i've been keenly aware of some abuse goin' on in the life of someone i care about.

too aware, maybe.
i've been physically reacting and that's not so good.
i'm workin' on the detachin' stuff.
remembering that it's not my journey and that i can't fix everything.
i'm workin' on it. i'm workin' on it.

and i've been doin' a whole lotta thinking about abuse.

i think in my earlier days i had some image in my head of someone who would
accept abuse. i don't know...a 'weak' woman or something like that.
always a woman in my head.
funny.
never saw it as a man's issue.
and i always saw it physical. it took awhile before i really 'got'
the emotional stuff.
you know, life's a whole lot more black and white when you're young.

and then, somewhere along the line, i lived thru my own kinda abuse.
and took it.
looking back, i can't really figure out why.
i think some part of me figured i deserved it.
i think.
i'm not sure.
but i think so.

i tell myself it's not possible for me to accept that garbage ever again.

that i've grown stronger.

but i don't know......
cause i watch around me.

i know of two very strong people right now who are allowing abuse in their
lives.

and i so wonder why.

if they were 'weak,' it'd make sense to me.

but i don't see them that way at all.
so it confuses me.
and makes me want to stay very aware.

i've seen enough now thru the years to see that there's so many different
angles to it all.

that it certainly is not just a woman's issue.
that it happens in so many forms in so many ways.
that there's some raw, vulnerable place that the abuser seems to just
instinctively latch on to.
and that the very raw vulnerable spot that can attract abuse is the same one
that can bring great healing.

and this one........this angle is hitting me a lot right now.......

the allowing of the abuse is just as destructive to the one doing the abusing.

i don't know how to put that out there.
cause i totally get how awful it is to be abused.
and how the abuse is in NO WAY - NO WAY AT ALL - the fault of the abused one.
i get that. and hold that so carefully.

and i think back to my own stuff.
i just did not have at the time the strength to stand up and stop it.

i did eventually.
and things come when we're ready.

but to have someone come along and say 'you're doin' as much damage by
allowing it as he's doin' by dishin' it out'....well, that prolly woulda
broke me.

don't put any more on me, ya know?

i so get that.

and if i had seen, if i had really known that it was so completely wrong
and unhealthy, it never woulda happened in the first place.

so you can't just walk in and say that kinda stuff. because it's all part
of it all. you can't take it apart like that at the time.

but i can see it from over here.
from my safe corner when it's not happening to me.
i can see it.

and what i want to do is remember it.
because it's way important.

our interactions totally affect each other.

that ol 'enabling' label makes me shudder more and more the older i get.

i never want to be an enabler again.

for my sake.
and everyone else's.

i can just picture the ol 'life review'....when you stand their accountable for
your life.....

'and terri, how many people did you enable along the way???'

oh man.
i hope they don't ask that!

living our light means so many different things, doesn't it?