It’s been a month since my dad moved out.

Things are slowly beginning to feel different.

Yet, it surprised me how little changed at the same time.

My dad has been so far removed from my life for so many years, that I lost no more substantial contact than the toxic words and an occasional family game night that went okay.

I wonder, if I knew anyone who’d go through this already, I’d ask them if they felt the same, or if the abuse was so involved in them that it was an immediate release.

Slowly, feelings of relief have begun to creep in, but only small ones so far. My mind still hasn’t really grasped it.

My friends have been great about it though.

I also, surprisingly, almost feel like I miss him.

I know it is not so unusual for people on the receiving ends of abuse to feel sympathy for the abuser. It’s not, I think, wholly bad. If you can still see how that person has real needs and feelings even if they are cruel, you are less likely to dehumanize them by being cruel in return.

Though, perhaps never standing up to someone is a form of dehumanizing them, because it keeps them on a pedestal of fear.

I tried to pity my dad so that I would not hate him. Hate would turn me into a person I do not want to be.

I’m not willing to pay the price of hatred, the loss of everything I can feel joy and gladness over, and every other relationship.

I find myself thinking a lot about new beginnings. I had begun to wonder if my dad would hold me back for many years yet, out of fear of me breaking free. My dad never, perhaps, knew he was doing this, but his insecurities did it for him.

I also still feel like he’ll get at me somehow to punish me for this, I think that is also common to people like me.

It’s not, however, completely unfounded, he’s the type of person to do it. I wonder if my success ever depends on him again, if he’ll try to sink me on purpose.

These anxieties keep bugging me, though I do not take them especially seriously.

It’s hard to move forward. I must rethink everything about my life, in a sense, and ask how much of it was affected by the toxicity.

That I still enjoy things at all, and am even able to open up to people, I credit God with.

God has ministered to me through people, often people are imperfect about it, they give up too easily, put their own spin on it, or push too hard when you most need them to ease up and let you breath, but even so, that there are some who try is encouraging to me, because I can hope that I will learn to trust them.

I have trust issues. My dad proved himself untrustworthy many, many times. Every time I needed him, pretty much, he failed me. Then, he blamed me for never relying on him.

I ended up with a very weird complex due to this. If I ever do open myself up to someone, I usually feel like they are just bearing it out of a sense of duty. I tend to withdraw, and then push forward in strange ways.

I tend to not put myself forward just when I most want to be noticed, and then to not set enough boundaries when I am asked for help.

In one way, it’s because my idea of giving is that it is limitless, even if as a human I must rest from it sometimes, but it’s also because I see my services as worth so little.

On top of that, I am confident most of the time, and then I have very poignant insecurities on certain things that surprise people.

Overall, I believe the Holy Spirit has healed me enough that my stronger side is the good things, and the insecurities, while they give me trouble, do not rule me. But they influence me more than I thought.

In the absence of my dad’s abuse, I almost seem to be trying to invent it, to recreate the same feeling, since it was my normal…at the same time, I’m fighting it.

I think, I want to defeat it once and for all, and I could not defeat it in him, so I want to pick a fight with someone I can defeat it with, and finally win.

I could prove I was worthy of more by being strong enough to stand up for myself, or I could plead until someone finally took pity on me like I wanted my dad to.

It’s strange to no longer be the victim. I wanted someone to hear my case for so long, and now it happened, it felt so short, and I am no longer a victim.

In a way, I stopped being one in my mind a long time ago, but the marks of it remain on my soul, where only healing can remove them.

I basically sent my dad the message: NO, you cannot do this to me anymore.

Now, all that remains is to receive the deliverance that came, and move on. Build a new life.

Someday, I hope my dad can come back into it, when he’s had a change of heart.

Can I move from fighting for my own survival to fighting for other people?

Thought I never let my heart die entirely over the years, by giving it to God, it could not help but take damage form this. Now I’ve been looking at it, wondering how it’s doing…

Hello my old heart, how have you been? Are you still there inside my chest? I’ve been so worried, you’ve been so still, barely beating at all…

Hello my old heart, it’s been so long, since I’ve given you away. Every day, I add another stone, to the walls I built around you to keep you safe…

Hello my old heart, how have you been? How is it being locked away? Don’t you worry, in there you’re safe, it’s true, you’ll never beat, but you’ll never break.…Cause nothing lasts forever, some things aren’t meant to be, but you’ll never find the answers, until you set your old heart free…

I began the process of taking down the stones around my heart years ago… by which I mean, God began to heal me. Yet, I had an active role in it too, we choose our path.

Still, I knew that there was more, my capacity to give and receive love is far from full. I seem to have shut down a good portion of it, sufficing on a little bit from time to time.

Like how my dad would occasionally be amiable, never really loving, but not hostile.

I went through a phase years ago of feeling I could be loved all the time, and loved deeply. I’m not sure what happened. I think as people failed me more and I got distracted by adulthood, I stopped tending to my needs as much.

It’s really hard to come out of that. My mind still thinks it’s true, but my heart has a much harder time committing to it.

So, I want my old heart to come back alive again.

Until next time–Natasha.