Lynse Leanne

How do you process things? Feelings? Emotions?

I am a pensive, thoughtful, often dark processor. I spend time thinking and thinking and thinking about the things that worry about or am not sure about. It rules my life until i come to a conclusion. It literally plagues my mind. I have moments where it is in the forefront and others that it is in the back of my mind but its never gone.

I remember a few years back when i was in therapy my therapist proposed i do something called “worry time.” For me, that gave me the permission to sideline my worry, processing and emotions so they didnt rule my day or life, but the knowledge that i would get to “worry” about it or process it later. I would actually schedule “worry time” into my week. If it was a stressful week i would schedule an hour. If it was a calm week i would schedule 15 minutes. But i would always set a timer so i knew when it was time to put those worries back on the side and actually live my life.

It worked really well for me for that season. Instead of being deep and processing for the whole week, which was giving me stomach aches and making me lose sleep i could live. I let myself worry and knew that i would get to worry about it later.

Anyways, i was curious….how do you process your feelings and emotions or things that kind of stress you out? or are you a pretty easy going, no stress kind of person?

Opening up and letting someone in started the long long road of recovery, the road that I am still traveling. Not only from self injury, but also from the abuse.

I can’t say that I am totally “over” the abuse, I think something like sexual abuse is something you carry with you your whole life. You may just grow detached as time goes on. I still daily deal with it. I still daily choose to forgive my abusers. I still daily face the lies I bought into. I still daily combat those lies with the truth of God.

Self injury is something that through God’s grace is behind me. After counseling and years of “sobriety” from it I can say that I no longer run to it for my first solution.

But to be honesty, I have hard times when I struggle with it and relapse. But I go to God and ask for His forgiveness, I confess it to a safe person and I move on, I no longer let guilt play in my mind, God has moved on… and so should I.

It has taken years to get to a place that I can even begin to think about sharing my story. I was 6 when all of this started and I am now 23….and it is only now that I feel strong enough to share.

Though it has been a rough fight I know that God has walked alongside me the whole time….and the times I couldn’t walk I know that He carried me.

As I continue to work through some of the lies I believed from other people or the lies that I told myself I have began to experience such freedom.

Chad and I work through the residue of this daily. I am still in counseling and it is a daily struggle I have to fight through.

Lies left un-touched for years become very hard to fight. They become ingrained in your life…everything. And it is totally unnoticed the more time goes on.

Through most of my life I have played the role of the victim. Because I kind of was, so I felt entitled to it.

But instead of carrying that through my entire life I chose to be a victor. I knew that God had something big for my life. And I woke up to the fact that I was choosing to hold onto it and stop God from doing big things in and through me.

So instead of sitting back and letting all of these things define who I am and change who God made me to be I chose to deal with them. Look the straight in the face and combat the lies.

I had a choice. I could continue to let it own me, define me and run my life….OR I could take a hold of God and fight through all of my junk. It was not and is not easy. But the freedom I have right now makes it worth it. And I know the longer I fight the more freedom I will know.

So today, October 29th, 2009 I would say that I am in a healthy place. I am still walking this all out. I am still learning what it means to live in freedom, in forgiveness, and without letting something totally define me.

I am learning to be me. The me that God made…not the me that I became because of circumstance.

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if you missed my story you can catch up here.
Part 1 – my first secret
Part 2 – it was who i was
Part 3 – the first cut is the deepest
Part 4 – I just wanted a friend
Part 5 – The Only Thing I Had

I never spoke a word about it. I was back to hiding my darkest secrets. The ones that were killing me the longer they stayed secrets.

I dove further into self injury. It became my obsession. It was the only way to get past that time.

I wanted to die because I didn’t even feel like I was alive. I was an empty body walking around.

So I would cut to see the blood. To know I was still alive.

Cutting became the only thing I had to look forward to.

The only thing that was positive in my life.
The only thing that stood by me.
The only thing that didn’t judge me.
The only thing I didn’t have to worry about leaving me.

It was safe.

I kept cutting secretly from 13 until 17. 4 years of silence. 4 years of playing the game.

I was in church by this point and if you were to ask anyone around me I was happy. Life was good. But deep down I was dead. Cutting was the only way I could fake my way through life.

But one Sunday my life’s course completely changed because a lady was bold enough to share her story….

I was in a small group meeting called Become. It was for girls and each week they had a different speaker come and share with the group. On this particular week a lady came and shared her story of sexual abuse. In high school she was raped. She shared her journey of healing through that. She seemed to have a normal life…a husband, 3 perfect children. But her story was a lot like mine.

For the first time in a long time I felt a little twinge in my heart. I like to think it was a spark of hope.

That day I opened the door to someone. I let someone in.

I was not sure what to expect. I just dumped that I was sexually abused and was heavily involved in self injury. I didn’t know if she was safe. But I did know that she had a story a lot like mine. I hoped should would have a soft heart.

After I got everything out she asked if I would like to get coffee that coming week. She wanted to talk more about everything and find out if I was ready to heal.

She was willing to just sit with me, to cry with me…she was content to just be with me. Whatever I needed from her she was willing to give.

Over time I grew to love her. We are still in contact to this day.

Trust took a while. I was still scared there would be some form of betrayal. Because what else could I expect?

Over the years I would spend time at her house, with her family and children. She was like a second mother to me. She was incredible.

But no matter how difficult I made it on her in the beginning she walked along side me as long as we lived in the same city. She was someone I could trust completely.

If I needed her at 2am, she was there. She was safe. She was just what I needed.

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if you missed my story you can catch up here.
Part 1 – my first secret
Part 2 – it was who i was
Part 3 – the first cut is the deepest
Part 4 – I just wanted a friend

Please excuse this quick break in my story for this post. I will continue with my story tomorrow. Trust me.

Sharing my story has been a tough thing. it has been a tough week. I feel like i had moments when i was on top of the world because God was using me….and others when i was so low i just wanted to cry.

But as i sat and tried to pinpoint what was going on on the inside i realized i was mourning some things. I was mourning the loss of innocence that i had, i was mourning the loss of joy that was stolen from me for a time. But the biggest was mourning the fact that I had no one that i felt like i could trust as a child. That no one was there to protect and defend me.

I have this bad habit of watching “Law and Order : SVU” and i know that i shouldn’t watch it as much as i do, but there is something about it that most times makes me feel good, but the other times i feel really bad. I can have flashbacks or anxiety attacks. But this week was different. This week I felt sad for the younger Lynse. I felt sad because i had no one to tell. I had no one that i felt like i could tell. I was very alone.

But in the show the kids have a protector and defender. But i didnt. No one was there to steal me from the situations. No one was safe for me.

And i was jealous. I was sad.

I know many of you can relate to that. You may not have endured the same things as i did, but you had to endure something…..alone.

And for that i am very sorry. I am sorry that you didnt feel safe to tell anyone. I am sorry that no one was there to fight for you and be on your side.

It hurts. It is a painful place to be. It is a lonely place to be.

I pray that today you have someone you can open up to. I pray that someone in your life is completely safe.

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Ok, back to your day….and if you missed my story you can catch up here.
Part 1 – my first secret
Part 2 – it was who i was
Part 3 – the first cut is the deepest
Part 4 – I just wanted a friend

I was 13 and was new to my school.  8^th grade…the year I am convinced is the worst to change schools in….and I changed countries.

My first day was filled with such fear.
Was I going to look like all of them?
Would I act differently?
We moved to the South so I wondered if I would be able to understand any of them.

The first day of classes for me came around and I remember sitting in Reading class and getting a note from a girl one row over. (we will call her Melanie for this story).

The note simply asked my name, how old I was, where I lived and if I drank, smoked or did drugs.

I thought about the determination I had and debated playing dumb to avoid all of the things I wanted away from….but I was so desperate for friends, for love….for something.  So I checked yes to all.

Turns out she lives in the apartments near my house. So it made sense that we would hang out. It just worked.

Melanie and I hung out all the time.  We would get off the bus at her apartment and spend hours there.  The first time I was over there she gave me the family scoop.  She lived with her Uncle and Aunt, but her aunt was back home because her uncle had been drinking and became violent and beat her.

In my mind I saw all of the “red flags” but wanted to be accepted so bad, I just wanted a friend, so I brushed over it. I ignored the red flags and warning signs.

We would hang out, smoke pot, drink and whatever else we wanted and whenever we wanted.  Her uncle would buy us anything we desired….alcohol, pot, cocaine…anything that would make us stay more time with them.

I posted a few weeks ago about one night at their house and how physically abusive he was…but that was a pretty regular thing.  He would physically abuse his wife on a regular basis and us as well from time to time.

Not only did he physically abuse me, he began to sexually abuse me….

It started small and the more I was silent the more he did. The one time I tried to fight him he grabbed his trusty gun and made it very clear that if I were to fight it anymore he knew how to use the gun and wasn’t afraid to use it.

I cant explain to you why I kept going back, I have spent hours obsessing over it the only reason I can come up with is that I was scared for my life. I didn’t feel safe enough to tell anyone. I could have lost my only friend, or my life.

So I endured the abuse.

Over a period of 6 months the abuse escalated until he raped me.

I was 13, he was 46….

I felt so used.
So objectified.
So broken.

I knew these feelings from the abuse before. But this time it was more. I must have been the one to blame….because it kept happening. Did I have a target on my back that said “hey, come abuse me?”

A week after the rape Melanie moved to live with her grandmother and that was the end.

I knew that I no longer had to endure the abuse.

But the fear plagued me….

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If you missed part 1 – 3 here they are….
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3