Emotional Healing that has taken place

It has taken me a long time to start on this page.  I find it very difficult to write - there are so many things that happened and some of it touched me deeply.  Well, let's see how far I get on it......       

I gave my heart to Jesus in 1992 after going through a divorce.  The 2 most overwhelming emotions was that it felt like a physical weight that fell off my shoulders when I asked Him to forgive my sins, AND actually accepted that He could and wanted to wash me clean.   I kept on saying.... If I only did/didn't ...   It was only when I learnt that every time that I say that, I'm actually saying to Jesus that His blood on the cross was not enough to remove my sins.   I had to consciously force myself to say;  No... Jesus forgave all of that ... you are not allowed to say... If only I didn't...     So the first feeling was one of wonderful relief.  The second was a feeling of acceptance on Jesus' behalf.  I felt that if no-one else loved me, I KNEW that He loved me.   It was a wonderful feeling.

This is so difficult...... I'm going to need many pages for this one!  Hopefully you can sit through it all!

Even though I experienced Jesus' love and acceptance, I still had an extremely low self-esteem.  I felt I was worth nothing, I had no self-confidence around other people.  I always felt that everybody else was cute, witty, attractive, was wanted etc... only me - I was the wall-flower and believed that no-one wanted to be in my company.  I didn't blame them either.  I knew I wasn't worth anything.   Not many did look for my company either.  If I befriended a popular girl, I 'knew' that it wouldn't last long - there would be no reason for her to want to be in my company.  I had nothing to offer her.   (this is now going back a long way).  Anyway, so I accepted Jesus and I felt   accepted, but not by people.  The Lord gave me 2 wonderful friends at work (my spiritual fathers, I always say), and they kept on telling me that I was needed etc.   I didn't believe them.  My one friend often said to me that he loves me unconditionally.  I didn't believe him.  I told him often that as soon as he really knew who and what I was, he would not be friends with him anymore.  Then he would ask me:  So tell me - who and what are you then?  What do you mean?   I could never tell him, because I didn't know what I meant.  I just knew that inherently I was a bad and terribly ugly person - one that no-one would want to know once I dropped my guard.  I lived in total denial of my pulling for all my years.  It sounds strange, I know, but even though I knew I was pulling (obviously!), emotionally just denied the existence of it in my life.  So this friend and I was truly trying to determine why I had such an low self esteem.  I was looking for answers just as hard as he was.  We looked at different reasons - I was the eldest of 4 girls, and at times I felt that there wasn't ever really enough time for me - there was always another sister that needed attention.  We looked at my relationship with my father, which wasn't exactly wonderful during my childhood.   Even with that all, it still didn't really make sense to me.  I did very  well as school (academically I was normally first in the class), I was a prefect, I played provincial netball, I sang in the choir, I did very well in acrobatics, I did ballet, played the piano etc.  With most things that I tried, I was just a little above average .  Yet, I had this terribly low self-esteem.  WHY?  I just couldn't find the answer.

The moment I discovered the truth about trich, everything fell into place.  It was incredible.  Here I was, 32 years of age, and for the first time I started understanding who I was and why I felt like I did.   Everything just clicked into place!  Suddenly understood why I said:  If you really knew who and what I am, then you will reject me.  What I meant (totally unknowingly), was that if you discovered that I was so crazy/twisted/sick in my head, to pull out my hair, then you wouldn't want to be friends with such a nutcase.  So that was why I said all those things.... that was what I actually meant, but I honestly had no idea!

I never allowed anyone to come near to me (emotionally). I always thought I did, but I was hiding my trich secret so much, that I was actually hiding a very important part of me. The problem was, if I let someone come near, I may begin to rely on their love, and wouldn't be able to handle their rejection once they discovered my big secret. I never had any doubt that I would be rejected when this happened. What I usually did, was to reject them, before they had the chance to reject me.  Today, after I told so many people about my trich, NOT ONE has rejected me. In fact, I just received tremendous love, support and sympathy. Today I accept it if people say that they love me. I accept it, because now I love and accept myself. Today I know that I am quite ok, whether I pull or not. Today I know I am worthy to be loved and that it is quite ok to accept someone else's love.

Today I know that I have a lot of empathy with other people going through hard times, even if it isn't trich.  I understand now that people walk around us daily, and many (most) of them have secrets that haunt them, things that make them react the way they do.  My secret changed my personality and the fear of discovery forced me to be somebody different from who I really was.  Today I understand that in other people.  I realize now that what you see on the outside, isn't necessarily what is going on in the inside.  When I started telling people (even my family) about what I went through all these years, they couldn't believe it.   On the outside I looked quite 'normal' - laughing etc.  I was always more of an introvert than an extrovert, but nobody had any idea of the pain and trauma I was going through because of trich.  I had to keep a happy face, to make sure my secret was safe. 

I am so thankful that my secret has come out into the open.  I thank God for healing me emotionally, for showing me that I am acceptable and loved.  I thank Him for enabling me to love myself, for the first time in my life.

(I think I hit a blank - I'm sure I had much more to say, but I forgot all of it.  Well.... maybe later I'll add more.  For now.......  that's all folks! )

21/6/98 - During the last few weeks, a lot of emotional healing has taken place in my life.  I can just thank and praise the Lord for it.  It has been a difficult time, but God knew best when He put me throughout these situations - He wanted to heal me, and even though it was hard, today I can just say:  THANK YOU LORD!

Please read the story about the article I did in our local newspaper.  So much healing came from that! 

Now, this isn't a road that I would have chosen myself - my secret was my safe haven.  If no-one knew, they couldn't reject me, mock me etc.  But the Lord had other plans.  Once I was in the article-process, I realized something.  At this time, I was saying to Louis - I cannot go through with this - I want to cancel the article.  It wasn't even an option - it was much too late to cancel it.  So I was stuck.  But suddenly I realized:  As long as I was carrying this secret around - as long as the people in my town didn't know, that was how long trich would have a hold on me - that is how long trich would bind me.  Even when I considered doing an article for a television program, I knew that many people in Welkom would still not see it.  So I still would have had my secret - and trich would still have a hold on me. Now God has seen to it that trich won't have that same hold on me anymore!

The picture in the newspaper wasn't a good one at all.  (it actually looks reasonable on the site, but in real life - grrr!!)  In fact, some people didn't even recognize me!  My reaction was:  Oh well!  At least my husband still loves me, and quite frankly, I love myself too!  I can assure you, 2 years ago, I would have had a completely different reaction, even if it was a netball picture or something like that.  The moment I said it, I realized that some more healing had taken place, without me even realizing it.  I think it is just some more proof of the fact that the Lord showed me that I am ok, whether I have trich or not.   He taught me to love myself, for the first time in my life.   I learnt that trich is just a part of me - it isn't the real me!  (This is something that people wrote to me quite often, when I just got onto the TTM mailer.  I just thought... you don't know what you're talking about!).  Today I understand what they meant.

My e-mail trich friend (Kim) visited me this weekend for the first time.  An incredible thing happened.  Kim, me, Louis and her boyfriend actually sat together for a long time, talking about trich, and how it affects our lives etc.  Louis told her boyfriend about how he experiences living with someone with trich, what he does to try and help me etc.  I think it was miraculous!   I have never talked about my trich to more than one person at a time.  I have never even discussed my trich with someone, when Louis was in the room.  For me, it was a breakthrough!  And the beauty of it was that we discussed it so naturally, as if we were discussing diabetes or such a thing.  It was incredible!  God is definitely doing miracles in my life!  I praise Him for it!