The Slap

I've been letting God redeem my childhood for the past several years. It's been a hard battle, but well worth the struggle.

Yesterday I addressed another episode from my past and I made some headway. The incident occurred a few years after the primary abuser had left my life, and before the last abuser's appearance. 

I was probably 10 or 11 years old, and yet there are aspects of the event that I remember so clearly. The heat on my face following the slap. The effort it took to keep my hand from flying up and slapping her face back. My immediate concern of what other's would think. And that recurring vision of myself as stupid, clumsy, and inept. 

Being slapped is supremely humiliating and demeaning. I wonder sometimes if that's why women use slaps as often as they do. It serves a dual purpose -- causing pain and humiliation simultaneously. With my history being slapped raised all kinds of red flags and triggers. I was shocked and terrified. I had thought I was finished with being the victim. I had thought I was safe at school -- in public. I had thought I had nothing to fear in this current environment. I was wrong. Again.

After the slap, climbing into my mother's car to go home, I felt much the same as I had after much more intense episodes. I was hot and sweating. I felt disconnected and disoriented. I wasn't sure how this had happened, nor did I understand why the attacker was not being reprimanded. What I did know was there was no point in telling. She would deny the slap, and somehow turn it around and make it my fault. It was -- as always -- a no win situation.

Looking back on it now it's easy to see these correlations. To see connections and logical reactions that were not readily available to me at the time. 

And I realize I hold an inordinate amount of anger and hate toward this person. Anger and hate that only hurt me at this point. That's why I'm dragging it all out now, all these years later. It's not about retribution. It's about healing. It's about not letting "them" hurt me anymore. It's about not being their tool to continually inflict pain on me. 

So I'm asking God to lead me. To show me where He wants me to go. And I'm trusting that He'll keep walking with me, redeeming the days.

linking up with imperfect prose