Finding Joy

The holiday season is upon us and everyone is (ostensibly) filled with joy. I’ve been busy with holiday doings, driving to California for Thanksgiving with family, back home and buried in decorating the house for Christmas and then Christmas shopping, writing the Christmas letter and mailing it, then back to California again for the holiday with the family. This is the first chance I’ve had to write my (usually) weekly blog. I’ve been thinking about the season and how it brings great joy to some and to others sadness, loneliness and their usual despair at how life has turned out.  All over the world are children who not only will not receive any gifts from Santa Claus; they may not even have food to eat or a place to sleep on that day. How thankful those of us who are not in that predicament must feel; how terribly sad that we can’t take care of all of the children who need it so desperately. It is difficult to keep from feeling guilty when we have so much and others so little.  And yet, for those of us who were sexually abused, many are not able to find joy in this day whether they have food to eat and a place to sleep or not. Instead they have bad memories of a childhood that gave less than it promised, much less.

When I was in recovery I realized that everyone, no matter how painful their childhood, had moments of joy in one way or another. In my life, playing trucks in the dirt with my two older brothers, swimming in Midwestern rivers in the summer, ice skating on them in the winter, hiking in the woods, learning how to read and finding the magic in words are a few of my cherished memories of joy. Somehow Christmas always found its magical way to our home no matter what else was happening. I remember standing on my brother’s shoulders as we peeked in our parents’ closet to find presents mailed by relatives, shaking them so we could guess what wonderfulness might be in them and then racing back to the living room when we heard the scrapping of tires of my parents’ car as they returned from grocery shopping where they would find us innocently doing our homework (our first lesson on how to keep secrets?).

Mom baked several loaves of fruitcake, wrapped them in cheesecloth and hid them in my dad’s Marine Corp lockers to be taken out on Christmas Eve. Every day new Christmas cards arrived from family members in other states containing long letters on how everyone was doing and sometimes money in a packet for each of us five children. As the big day grew closer our excitement heightened and, despite the dysfunctional nature contained in its being, our family became one of finding joy. Christmas Eve meant midnight mass at our local Catholic Church, a magic all its own. My heart soured at the thought of the newborn Christ child. My voice strained to new heights when we sang the traditional Christmas carols. My eyes filled with tears at the sight of candles lit all over the church, decorations that crowded the altar and the happy faces around me of my friends. My nostrils breathed in deeply the fragrance of pine trees surrounding the nativity scene and incense permeating the church. The rituals of the Catholic Church appeal to all the senses and on Christmas Eve it reached the pinnacle of its powers.

Even the most sexually abused of children find a way to bring joy in to their lives. It might be as small a thing as going to a movie or watching a great comedy on television. Then again, it might be writing in a diary, making a friend at school or eating something that is our favorite food. When I was growing up my mother was not a great cook but she had special ways of dressing up the table. Every dinner had a vegetable platter and from that I developed a love for vegetables. She baked bread, dinner rolls and sweet rolls. Before the dark times hit our family, coming home from school into a house filled with the smell of baking goods was nirvana. And while she was a terrible homemade soup cook and equally terrible dessert maker, Sunday morning breakfasts of bacon, eggs, orange juice and toast made from the homemade bread tasted pretty good.

After my father began raping me in the middle of the night it was harder to find joy in my life. Suicidal thoughts, feelings of desperation, acute anxiety causing my limbs to tremble filled my life. Yet I found moments of joy. I discovered European classics and with my vivid imagination I was able to leave my body and watch the great love of Heathcliff and Catherine in Wuthering Heights unfold. I traveled with the French army as Napoleon led them down the dark and painful road to Russia in the great saga of War and Peace. When reading Earl Stanley Gardner’s mysteries I was enthralled with his techniques of detective work and courtroom victories. I found joy in watching nature as it traveled through all of its seasons in the Midwest and trees, forests, rivers, flowers and gardens became my friends. Ice skating down the Beaver River in the northeastern corner of Nebraska while I watched woodland creatures race along with me was exhilarating and remains one of my strongest and happiest of memories.  If I could put away the ugliness of my life at home and enter a world of joy, even if only for an hour, it was a triumph. I didn’t know it at the time but I was building behavior patterns that would stand me in good stead in the dark days of the next three decades.

If you are going through recovery and finding it a greater struggle than you imagined, make a list of all those times in your past when you found joy. Make another list of all of the things you did that required courage no matter how small. I’ve always loved swimming and when I was very young I would go to the local community swimming pool with its two swimming boards, one of them a high board. I had already developed a fear of heights but something inside of my ten year old body compelled me to climb the high board anyway. Each time I would go to the edge of the board, look down at the water and shake with fear. I would look behind me and see all the people waiting for me to jump so they could have their turn. Terror stricken I would jump, promising myself I would never do that again only to find myself standing in line time after time. Little did I know I was building up courage and a determination to overcome fear. It was one of the reasons I completed recovery; one of the driving factors in making my way across the Bridge of Recovery.

If I can do it, you can do it. Order a copy of Repair Your Life. You can find a book page on it with the many five star reviews and a link to amazon.com on our website at www.thelamplighters.org. Order the book and begin your own recovery.

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