Healing

There are times where I can't help be simply take a step back and be grateful for my life as it is.  For all the heartache, the weirdness, the times of trouble, the personal things I've had to deal with in my past... I've come out of it all okay.

I come from a broken home.  This does not reflect upon my own ability to maintain a stable, healthy relationship.  It does not reflect upon my ability to have relationships with both of my parents.  Any issues that arose from the separation of my parents have been resolved and left not lingering issues of abandonment or fear of commitment.

I was sexually abused.  This does not reflect upon my ability to have a healthy view of sex as an adult.  I have no weird, off the wall issues or fetishes stemming from my childhood.  I did not lose my virginity young or have any issues with relationships that were founded on sex.  I did not seek out sex as a form of attention, or shy away from it unnecessarily.

My mother is a schizophrenic.  This does not reflect upon my own mental health.  I am fairly normal by societies standards, at least as normal as any one person can be.  I have some quirks but not real issues.  My mother's behavior toward her children, while not always rational, was always loving.  I wasn't aware other mother's did anything different until I was old enough to accept what my mother was dealing with.  She never gave me reason to resent her.  I may have had to grow up a little more quickly than I would have liked to, but as a whole it hasn't been detrimental.  She has served as an example of a truly empathetic, intelligent, caring, selfless individual and I'm proud to call her mom.

I was lucky, I don't know why or how, but I came to understand at a relatively young age, that my experiences are two things.

1)  They are merely experiences, they happened to me, they do not define me.  My words and actions do that.  There is no shame in living through what someone else does to you.
2)  They are mine to talk about.  If they happened to me, they are mine, and no one can tell me who I can tell about them or when the time is right to open up.  Those that try are only hindering the process of healing.

I don't know why I was different in that regard.  I'm very grateful I was though.  I have had years to come to terms with the past.  I've had years of healthy living to prove to myself that none of this is a fluke, I am really over all of that.  I simply hope that I can help others realize the same thing is possible.