Walking Through pain: Adolescents Day 3

Adolescence can be such a horrible, unforgiving time. There you are changing and not knowing what to make of it all. You’re caught between childhood and adulthood and often all you feel is awkward.

Snakes go off and hide when they molt. Butterflies make a cocoon and transform in darkness. But God bless them, teenagers have to go through all that change right out in front of everyone. Bodies change, voices change, faces change. And often the process is attended by a lot of humiliating pain. 

Where is the manual that explains what’s going on and how to cope? It’s an awful thing to do it all by your solitary self.

The testimonies of others help us know that we’re not alone and that there’s hope. Here is a blog post from a former racer, Juliana Grinols.  

Juliana writes:

There’s no easy way for me to dive into this. I’ve written a million beginnings and I feel they all fall short. I sit here now shaking. I’ve already cried several times and the words just won’t come out. I feel embarrassed, I feel scared, I feel the weight of shame and lies push me into the floorboards. But I can’t be silent anymore. This story is not for my own selfish gain, but to glorify the work that God has done through lies of the enemy that I believed would strangle me. The enemy brought me false death and my Father gave me free life. That is a story worth sharing.

I was in an abusive relationship. This relationship tore away at my identity. It destroyed my friendships and my relationship with my parents. It isolated me, condemned me and ruined me. I did things I never wanted to do. I acted out of character and became somebody that I was never created to be. And that was just the beginning.

After leaving the relationship, I felt completely empty. I had no friends, I had no identity apart from this guy and I certainly couldn’t talk to my parents about what had happened. How could they understand? It would only hurt them if they knew what I had done. 

I can’t describe to you fully the internal pain that comes from suffering emotional abuse. I felt like a fully inflated balloon that was always unable to pop. I walked around emotionally taxed and wasted with no outlet. I needed a release. I needed to let some pressure out of my body, somehow, some way.

I began cutting myself.

The first time I did it I remember thinking, finally. It might sound strange but when I cut, I almost felt hopeful. I literally couldn’t feel any emotional pain. I was numb to the world around me. I walked around in a haze, angry at the world, angry at myself, angry at God. When I cut, I felt something. It felt like freedom. It showed me I was still alive.

It didn’t take long before the marks became noticeable to others at school. One thing led to another, and I was in an office with the school interventionist – The counselor that all the “crazy” kids went. He promised ‘confidentiality’ would be granted and he only wanted to help. I left school that day with every kid thinking I was suicidal. I got home from school that day to a mom who was sobbing and a dad who looked at me like he didn’t know who I was. There was no confidentiality. It was a ploy to see how “dangerous” I was to myself and others. I learned my lesson that day.

Deny till you die. Never open up, because the truth with only make your mom cry, your dad not understand and every think you’re going mentally insane.

I pushed everyone away and told them what they wanted to hear. Nobody actually understood. I just wanted people to leave me alone, so I gave them some half-hearted story of being an angsty teen that was just playing around. That sufficed people’s curiosity for the most part and got my parents off my back. Now I just had to continue playing the part, so nobody would ask questions.

What happened next arose because I was at a total loss of who I was and directionless to who I wanted to be. I had no worth, so why should there be an expectation for others to value me?

I got back into a relationship with this guy and it brought me static emotions. At this point, I was completely disconnected from my true self and only lived to serve. My identity was rooted in his truth about me. Words like crazy, angry, not enough, too much, were thrown around. I was never good enough in his eyes. He controlled everything, from what I wore, to my friends, to what I did or didn’t share with my family or others. On the outside we were perfect, but behind closed doors I was isolated and destroyed. I was rotten and dead inside. That was my reality. My “cutting” days became extremely private and I hid my hurt even from him. It was the one thing I had for myself. It was the one truth I had about my identity that actually made me feel.

After months of faking happiness, the destruction became too much and we broke up. This time things were different. I had people who unexpectedly met me in my brokenness. I had friends that were patient with me and tenderly loved me. God reached out during these months and whispered soft truths back into my life. I got a glimpse of my old self and previous freedom. I felt hope stir. I stopped cutting and rested in the glimmer of life’s potential.

But the enemy has a way of hurting you while you’re still down. Before you can even think about fully standing, he’s there to remind you of who you really are. He makes sure you know that he’s always going to be around. That it’s actually him dangling freedom in front of you, taunting you, showing you what you could have had if you wouldn’t have screwed things up.

I met up with this guy once more. He wanted to talk about “us”. Part of me went because I wanted affirmation that he needed me, wanted me, or that I was good enough. I wanted to throw in his face that I was moving on, had friends and was happy. Whatever the reason, I went and saw him.

That night he sexually abused me. The following day, out of anger, he physically abused me. For the next 10 years I emotionally abused myself for believing I had allowed this to happen.

It was my fault. My thoughts were flooded with “if only’s”. If only I would have been strong enough to say no. If only I wouldn’t have been afraid of him. If only I would have been firm in my identity and my worth and would have not needed to seek out his approval or affirmation for who God had already created me to be. I didn’t listen to the voice of my Father and I allowed the enemy to consume me and stake his claim in my life. 

After revealing these truths to myself two years ago, I started digging into the impact it’s actually had on my life and how far gone I was. I found connections between my abuse and the way I had treated other relationships: detachment, anger, jealousy, noncommittal, those were all things that I could almost wrap my head around and make sense of my feelings during those times. What I didn’t realize was the vastness of my anger and brokenness that the enemy had created in other areas of my life. 

I have spent the last year in counseling uncovering my anger surrounding my abuse and seeking forgiveness. When I started digging up these suppressed memories, I felt so dirty. I felt so so angry. I wanted to run from my guilt and shame, and lash out at every single person who had ever hurt me. But God wouldn’t let me. He surrounded me with a community of people at my church who poured into me. He led me to some of the best women I’ve ever known, that have only spoken life to me. He gave me strength to confront my parents about my anger towards them for not protecting me, and my embarrassment and sadness for breaking their trust and disappointing them. He gave me grace – So much grace that I was able to not only begin talking about my abuse to my family and closest friends, but be able to accept and offer forgiveness.

Because of my abuse, I have left a wreckage of broken relationships in my wake. I’ve hurt people because of my suppressed anger and I’ve allowed people to use and hurt me due to my lack of accountability to myself and my values. I’ve been able to seek out those that I’ve wronged and ask for forgiveness. I’ve been able to offer forgiveness to other men that have wronged me, and to even forgive myself. What’s amazing about forgiveness is that it’s for you. Living in unforgiveness is like poisoning yourself every day with bitterness. It sits within you and sucks the air from your lungs until you’re consumed by it. God met me in those moments of asking for forgiveness and restored so many relationships. He has uprooted me from my darkness, broken my chains and given me new identity in Him. I’m no longer choking on my shame and bitterness toward the world.

I am free.

The lie from the enemy was that no amount of rain will ever wash you clean, but the enemy was wrong. The rain of the righteous has washed me white as snow and has restored me completely. I am no longer digging in the dirt, trying to bury lies, but I’m working in the garden with my Father, planting beautiful flowers in a place the enemy wanted me to believe was forgotten. God has never forgotten me. He has been with me through each moment, preparing the soil for me, being patient on my behalf and watering me with his mercy and grace. His love for me was relentless and fierce. He brought me to this place now, to share my story with everyone on the internet, because right now He’s preparing the way for somebody else to walk in freedom. Don’t you see?? We serve a God who is so loving! Only by His love and mercy have I been redeemed! 

Testimonies of pain and freedom can be contagious. Here is another. Amie Gallegos gives us an astonishing display of complete vulnerability in order to get free. Please read her blog post. It will blow you away.

Application

1. Amie inventoried her pain. Let’s follow her example. Begin by getting out your journal and a pen. Then ask God to show you your inventory of your life from your teenage years to this point. You don’t have to share this with us. However, sharing it with someone can be a good thing. It removes the power of the enemy. Ask the Lord who you can share it with.

2. Recognize that you may need several sessions. This is exhausting work. After you’ve done this, please let us know how you feel. What is going on in your heart?