Like a gutted animal.

I just finished reading a book called "Bastard Out of Carolina." We read it for my feminist lit class. The book (fairly accurately, if I may say) touches on three main themes: race, class and gender. Pretty standard for most feminist literature, I would say. The author tells a story of a poor, white, girl with a neglecting mother and an extremely abusive step-father.

As I try to write my paper for this book, I'm having trouble getting past my emotions. Some of you may know, I suffered abuse in my family. It's weird to type out because it doesn't really seem that real most of the time. And I don't really talk about it much. I don't like to talk about it much. When I even allude to it, I go numb. I feel like I'm talking underwater. I feel like my voice is hoarser than normal and my vision goes grey. My heart doesn't make much sense anymore.

Some might say this is a defense mechanism to keep me from getting too sad or angry or remembering too much. Maybe so. Apparently, it's not really healthy but I guess I'm not really sure what is.

When I was little, I didn't know that hitting, punching, shaking and calling your daughter a "little bitch" or "worthless" or an "idiot" was wrong. When I found it out was wrong, my entire world and everything I knew came crashing down right before my eyes. Everything I knew about love, everything I knew about God. Everything. If my father gave me a closed fist blow to the back of my spine, or a hard smack across my face for something as simple as leaving the refrigerator door open what does that say about the Father, God? If my own father, my own fucking flesh and blood could tell me with his slate grey eyes directly on mine, "I never wanted these goddamn kids in the first place." What does that say about God?

he ruined me.

Every time he hit me, every time he jerked me around like I was nothing more than a bag of bones, every time he called me worthless, I went numb. I felt like I was screaming at him underwater. My voice went hoarser than normal. My vision went grey. My heart didn't make sense.

Nothing made sense.

I was only a kid.

I guess the book brought out a lot out of me that I had put in a box and locked up and buried because I don't want to think about it anymore. I don't want it in my heart anymore. I don't want to be bitter about it anymore. I don't want it a part of my story. I don't want it a part of my life. I want it to go away.

It's so hard, you guys. This is raw and real, I know. It feels almost too raw to me to even be writing about. It feels like the image of a dead animal. Split open down the middle. It's rib cage gleaming in the sunlight. It's intestines spilling out on the asphalt. Everything fresh and bloody and raw. It makes you cringe. It makes you close your eyes.

Please don't close your eyes.

I'm pulling up the roots of abuse right out of my heart. It feels like I'm gutting myself. It feels gory and gruesome and brutal.

But luckily, I know that God is not like my dad. God loves me and would never hurt me and that's hard to grasp most of the time.

It's about to be literally, the hardest thing I have ever done.

Because I love my dad.

But, I also love God, and I know the past couple of days God has been telling me to walk in the light. With everything. And the light is bright and sometimes I want to go back inside or put on a pair of sunglasses or go hide in the shade somewhere. But I'm not doing that anymore. And God has given me an amazing body to open up to. So I'm doing it. Right here, right now. I need you guys.

Typing that didn't feel real. Please don't close your eyes.