In hindsight, I feel extremely violated.

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To begin, I must let you know that I am currently in a season where I feel like the wool has been lifted from my eyes, and I am finally seeing the main characters in my life for the roles that they truly play. Last month, when I shared my feelings about my father and his previous desires for my mother to terminate her pregnancy with me, I secretly wondered how the following weeks would go because I knew that my birthday was coming up shortly. I knew in my heart that I did not want to speak to my father, and I even advised my mother not to pass along any messages from him because I did not want to talk to him. One thing that is true about me is that although I can be very indecisive, I am set on that decision when I finally do make up my mind. And on this matter, I was very certain. The few weeks between his birthday and my birthday passed with no attempts at communication, sans a message from his wife towards the end of August. When I received that text, I chose not to respond, but I also knew that my father had found his “in” to communicate with me in the future.

On Wednesday afternoon, as I was blissfully enjoying my birthday, I saw that I had received a message from my stepmother and she was using a title with me that she had never used before- DAUGHTER. In the two years that she has been married to my father, I have respected her role in his life, but I have never viewed her as my mother (or a mother-like figure), and I never referenced her with any name beyond “Ms. [her first name].” There are so many women that I love as though they birthed me themselves. I call them “mom” or “mama,” because they have been in my life for so long, loving me and praying for me incessantly. I’m big on trust and relationship building; that mother/daughter bond is very dear to me. And with all due respect, I did not have that relationship with my stepmother. It is because I did not have that relationship with her that when I received a flood of birthday messages with the word “daughter” in it, I immediately knew that it was really my father texting.

Days later, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I had set up a boundary, and my father not only found a way around it, but he also completely violated it. My Love had to remind me of one thing- I had never explicitly told my father that I did not want to talk to him anymore. The signs were there, and he was aware, but I never actually said it to him. That is my fault. Yes, the mature thing to do would have been to have a conversation with my father, telling him how disappointed I was to hear about his desire to have my mother terminate her pregnancy with me. Yet the path I traveled seemed like the emotionally safe one; the one where I simply walked away from the man who had once walked away from me. The pain I feel today is significantly worse than the pain I believe I experienced as a child. Today’s pain is complemented by an overwhelming belief that I am more alone in this world than I originally thought I was.

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As I continue to adjust to being medicated for my ADHD, I am forced to confront feelings that my mind no longer has an option to avoid. I can no longer run from my feelings of abandonment and rejection; I can no longer hide from the fact that, for one reason or another (often beyond my control), many people have chosen to walk out of my life. This medication does not allow me to drown myself in an avalanche of tasks or soothe myself with food. Instead, it forces me to do the very difficult work of healing right where I am. For this, I am both grateful… and overwhelmingly frustrated. It’s not that I don’t want to heal because I’ve literally been writing about and praying for this for YEARS! However, this necessity for healing feels abrupt and all-encompassing… I did not know how to handle all of this. Emotions flood my mind and heart with every waking breath- it has all been too much. Oddly enough, this was the very thing that I feared would happen with getting on medication…and here I am.

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While I know what the Bible says about honoring our father and our mother, I also cling to what it says in Psalm 27:10. The truth is, as human beings, we are all flawed and we all make mistakes. We have all hurt someone, and we have all been hurt by someone. We are not perfect, and we do not lead perfect lives. But what we are (or can be) is open to the healing that God presents to us. Yet I am careful to remind us all that healing does NOT mean that we have to continue relationships with those that caused us harm.

My relationship with my father and many others may never be the same, but what I know for certain is that God has placed me in this time and space to have a complete overhaul of what I believed to be true about relationships… and that is enough for me.

Be blessed.