Lynse Leanne

It is not yet finished. I still have the colour and shading to get done….and that magic will happen November 19th. I debated sharing the story after that, but i am still getting people ask the meaning…so what better time than the present.

As many of you know i like to memorialize major events in my life by tattoos…hence the 9 that i have. ;)

This one is the one of most meaningful ones, and not just because it is the most recent but because of the story behind it.

The best way that i have learned to explain it is by getting people to picture the Wizard of Oz and the scene when Dorothy and the 3 companions are coming out of the dark forest and the Emerald City is before them.  It is beautiful.  They are coming out of darkness and all the struggle that happened throughout their time in the forest.  The Emerald City is in front of them, but as you remember from the movie they still have a journey ahead of them.  They still have struggles that they will face, but the worst is really behind them.  The darkness and despair and there is hope in their future.

I have always connected with that movie and i have always thought that part of the movie was the most majestic.  so much hope.

to me, the tattoo represents coming out of the darkness of my past and moving out from the shadow of it and living now and looking into the future.  i came to a point where i realized i was living in the darkness and the pity party and had to make a move out of it.  Through that entire season of moving past it i pictured this part of the movie.  The wonder, hope and awe that would come when i reached the end of that season and began to step forward into the light and all that is before me in my life.  So instead of getting that scene of the Wizard of Oz i had my amazing artist James mesh the concept and feeling i was going for into this.

The girl obviously represents me and the apprehension, hope, awe and wonder of what is to come, pausing at the end of the darkness to remember what was behind and the lengths traveled and the journey that was, but moving on into the next part of the journey.

So, that is the story behind it.

What is your favourite tattoo that you have and why?

The other night Chad and i were watching Criminal Minds. In this episode a little girl was kidnapped and the FBI “experts” began to tell the parents that the person who took their child was viewing her as an object and not a little girl. This struck a very big chord with me.

Through out my life I have been objectified.

I was abused by several men growing up and because they viewed me as an object. I was no longer Lynse, my identity was taken away and i had become just another thing….a baseball card that is bought and sold…when you are done with it you maybe put it in the closet or throw it away.

There is not a lot of value in an object.

After years of being treated like an object i began to believe that i was an object. I was there for someone else’s pleasure. my dreams, aspirations and voice did not matter, because, you see, i was only an object.

I am no expert, but i feel like a lot of people i have talked to who were abused woke up one day and felt like “i have to find myself” or “reclaim who i am”.

As i was half watching Criminal Minds and half having an inner dialogue about the damage of being objectified i realized that it was probably the most damaging aspect, for me, of the abuse.

Once you are objectified over and over and over you begin to think you are an object and you follow suit of your abusers and remove your own value.

And the on going cycle begins…if you dont have any value in yourself then others wont value you.

today as i am 10 years past the most recent sexual abuse trauma i am still left picking up the pieces. I still am trying to learn to value myself. I am still trying to see that i have a voice and those that love me should value what i have to say. I am still learning that i am a valued person by those around me, and i deserve to be valued. I deserve to be a person and not an object.

This is why when we went to New Orleans and walked Bourbon Street messed with me. This is why a part of my heart aches for human trafficking victims. Not that i know the extent of the pain, loneliness and all other emotions that have to be tied up in there. But i know just a sliver. I know what it feels like to be devalued. To be told over and over by different people that you are worth no more than sex or the pleasure that you can provide to them.

each person deserves to be valued. valued by themselves and others.

this is something i am still learning…and will probably be learning for my entire life. Learning to first value myself and then those around me.

Do you have a hard time valuing yourself? What about others?

As we are getting ready to move and packing we are also going through everything I own. EVERYTHING. The other night I found some old papers that I had written in High School that I held onto and i found this one. It is called “The Way She Feels.”. It is a story I had to write. The feelings are all mine…but I didn’t live in San Franscisco. That part was made up so teachers didn’t know it was about me. ;)

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Dark night, dark blood carrying with it a river of rage that had brought her to this point. And the horror of it suddenly shone with the clarity of her face in the mirror as she reached down for the razor blade. She always kept a constant supply of loose blades for when the rage took over. The cutting helps relieve the tension, she says to herself in a reassuring voice. I’m not addicted, I don’t have to do it, I just do.

She lives on the street in San Franscisco, it gets cold at night. She doesn’t know where her home is, she doesn’t have a home. Every passing day she is more mad at herself for where he life is, or isn’t in her case. She holds so much rage and pain in her sixteen year old being. People say singing or writing is their therapy but it is really their “release” from a “free” world where everything is dictated. She sees drugs, alcohol and citing as her way out of a life she dreams of leaving everyday.

The blade is bone chilling as she drags it across her stomach as she does each time. She stops and sits in silence for a minute or so, and waits. She is waiting for the pride inside of her to die and the courage to rage so she can have the guts to push hard enough to break the skin. You would think after two years of cutting it would e no problem, not for her, it’s more like a ritual. In this ritual she is waiting for the pride to die so she can humble herself before her “god” an refuge of cutting. She places cutting before anything, before life, love and herself. The pain that is carried with cutting, pain on the outside is no match for the pain that she feels inside, the void of something she has never felt for herself.

She never cuts deep enough to do more than hurt the skin, she is too afraid. She doesn’t know that cutting the outside is killing her on the inside. So many people care that she doesn’t know about. Since she left home when she was thirteen she has thought parents have no care in the world. They only think about themselves.

As she presses the blade a surge of pain jets through her body giving her a “supernatural” feeling, if she even believes in anything spiritual. It feels so good. How could other people not get how good it feels? The blood trickles down her stomach and pools into her bellybutton. It’s like she has left her body. Like she is sitting on the stairs, watching herself. She knows that it hurts but not knowing what else to do. Cutting is her way out of a boring life into a life less ordinary. A life not too many sixteen year olds lead. Cutting to the world is wrong, it’s morbid and people that do it deserve to be locked up and need only counseling.

But to her cutting is all she has to survive the nothingness her life is.

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As I read this I was taken back to when I was 16. And when all of those feelings and emotions were true to me. I was a little girl trying so hard to get caught. To be found out so I wouldn’t have to live in silence.

It makes me wonder how many other people are out there just wanting their addictions to be found out so the silence can be broken.

Recently i have been asked by some people why my name is spelled different….i have 2 spellings Lindsay and Lynse.

legally it is Lindsay….but to me it looks so foreign. up until now only my closest friends who knew me at the time know why….and Chad of course. Some of them may not even know that Lynse is not legal. but i guess i am out now….legally i am Lindsay Leanne….not Lynse Leanne.

but here goes the story.

when i was a junior in high school i lived in Colorado Springs, i was holding on to a lot of things, a lot of hurt. I was in the process of just coming clean about my sexual abuse and self injury issues….But i was working through it….I was letting God work in me and change a lot of the ways that i chose to cope.

i wanted God to show up and change those things in me, to heal me and take those things away. i wanted him to make me more like him.

so i spent 2 days praying and fasting for God to take it away from me and closed my time with communion….it was at a church service and i heard the pastor say something that i had never heard….

he said that God wanted to heal all of me, every area, including my mind and emotions….and i bought into it.

i cant tell you my exact feelings, but there was just a peace and a knowing that God showed up and i was not depressed anymore….i knew that God was near me. Of course i had “down” moments, but i was no longer depressed…and yes, there is a big difference.

you are probably wondering where the name change comes in….well that night i went to starbucks to read some more. I ordered my normal Grande Vanilla Soy No Water Chai and the lady at starbucks wrote my name “Lynse” and i liked it….

i was reading the story in Genesis 32 when God changes Jacob’s name to Israel and at that moment i felt the LORD say that just as he has begun a good work in me he was also changing the spelling of my name so that each time i wrote it or saw it i would be reminded that he worked in my life. That He changed me….that He showed up, we wrestled and God changed my name.

so for all of you who have asked….there it is. and for all of you who had no clue….you now know.

Has God ever done something so huge in you that you had to do something huge to remember it?

This week has been such a healing week. The verse in Revelation that says “You will overcome him (the enemy) by the blood of the Lamb and the word of your testimony” has never made more sense to me. I always thought that it was the fact that we had a testimony…like “God has saved me.” But once i started putting the “Word of my testimony” and speaking the things that had kept me in captivity and silence for so many years I felt like the enemy was overcome in my life even more.

But i wanted to touch on the ending of the Self Injury stuff. I know that i didnt really resolve all of that for you all.

When i graduated High School and moved to Birmingham, AL i started an internship called TwentyFourSeven. It was the best and worst 2 years of my life all rolled into one. It was like a character pressure cooker….

When i began i knew that the rules and character commitments of TwentyFourSeven didnt permit me to be involved in Self Injury….and if you dont know me i am a rule follower. But mid way through the year a group of triggers occurred and i gave back in.

Honestly, in hindsight i sort of see it as a blessing. Stopping something cold turkey is hard and without people knowing it makes it really hard to stop and stay stopped.

So when i gave back into self injury i confessed and they got me counseling. I spent a year or so in counseling with an amazing woman who helped me work through the acceptance issues, shame and many other emotions that triggered my self injury habits.

Here’s the thing….i always had this scar on my wrist from where i had burned myself with a hot lighter….when i was stressed i would touch it. I would see it. I would think about how good it felt to hurt myself. And i would always think to my self

“If this God thing doesnt work out i know that i can always go back to self injury to comfort me.”

In my mind it was something that i could easily go back to….

But still no one knew. So no wonder I gave in.

After some time in counseling I was reading my Bible one morning and this verse stuck out to me….

Philippians 2:15

so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.

In context it is talking about doing things without complaining…but the last line “in which you shine like stars in the universe.” That line got me and stuck with me.

God said, Lynse your story of self injury is going to be used by me and you are my star shining in a crooked and depraved generation…..you shine like a star in the universe.

So…like most other times in my adult life i got a tattoo to remind me of that. ;)  As i thought of location i thought my wrist was the best spot….over that scar.

The scar that reminded me i could go back.

Now instead of the scar i had the star reminding me that God was going to use me and I shine in the universe for Him.