Survivor
August 24, from “Strengthening My Recovery” daily reader
“It is my bias that no one deserves to live a life of fear and shame.” BRB p. xviii
Many ACAs go from blaming, shaming, complaining, and condemning ourselves and others to finally learning to name what is really going on. By doing so, we begin to come out of our victim and/or victimizer roles. We ask our Higher Power to help us remove and release our unhealthy behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. We let go of the justifications we created in our minds for our actions, thoughts, and emotions. Yes, we experienced abuse or neglect as children, and maybe as adults, but we know that does not excuse our dysfunctional behavior now.
As we gain strength and recover, we become healing survivors and then thrivers. We gradually and sometimes more quickly, develop new capacities for healthy wellbeing in our lives. We learn that we deserve a happy, full life. We learn that we have always deserved this. We don’t have to do anything to be worthy, we just ARE.
As thrivers, we now know that our Higher Power is there for us. We learn to have unconditional love for ourselves and others.
On this day I acknowledge that I am worthy and deserving of a happy, full life.
My Experience:
It was easy to justify taking abusive behaviors as I have taken a lot of abuse in my lifetime. It was equally easy for me to justify being the abuser as it was “just me protecting myself.” How wrong I was. Anger begets anger not love. I know I was abused, I know there are those that are still suffering that display abusive behaviors towards me. It is not up to me to “fix” them with like behavior toward them. It is up to me to be the loving person that I know I am. It is also up to me to decide if I want or need the person, place, or thing in my life and to be able to walk away if I need to. I always have hope that by me loving someone that they too will want to display that towards me, but I don’t have any control over that. I am moving away from survivor to thriver and it feels good.
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