Defusing Fear

TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 2010

Defusing Fear

Can we ever wholly heal from deep wounded scars that have affected our lives? I thought I was over some of those fears and childhood traumas that I went through. I went to counseling; I prayed almost as hard as I have the past year to help me to forgive. At times it felt as though these events in my life were holding me back like the events were substantial metal screws fastening down a large metal plate crushing my desire to live. It took me years to finally turn it over to the Lord and let him take this pain from me. I finally got to a place of forgiveness and even began to pray for the perpetrators. When one of the perpetrators died, I was at his bedside, and it was healing for me. Even though I had forgiven him, I did not see him for over 15 years until the day he died, and he was not conscious, so it made it easier for me.

I didn't want to go, so I prayed, and then the answer came that I should go; a year and 1/2 later, I was diagnosed with the VILLAIN. I say this last part because in reading the Anti Cancer, a couple of chapters were difficult for me to read without getting emotional. I have read them repeatedly and marked them, and highlighted them. The man who wrote this book is a clinical professor of psychiatry; he has counseled thousands of VILLAIN patients and seems to know his stuff. The doctor hit so many of my feelings over the years right on the nose. 

He said that trauma in VILLAIN patients can feed the VILLAIN, so many times people think they are past it, in reality, it is still on their minds.  They are living with it to some degree. I could not believe this when I read it; this is my life he's talking about. It almost made me want to look around and see if hidden cameras were watching me; how could he know this about me? Although I have forgiven, there are not too many days that go by that I don't recall painful events in my life. The trauma I felt as a young adult being home with my little brother when he died, he was only 15. I think about that all the time. Not having my mom in my life for over 17 years now has been unbearable at times. This has been trauma at its worst. I would wonder all the time if I handled these events right. Even having confirmation from the Lord and leaders in my life, I still think about it and wonder if I could have done something different. During my 20s I went through another horrible trauma that I won't post details about, but it changed my life. I'm deaf in one ear because of a traumatic event in my life. I forgave my birth father for abandoning me, but I spent most of my life in anger and fear because of it.

There was a study done by Barb Anderson, a professor of psychology at Ohio State University. She observed 227 breast cancer patients for 11 years. They all had either stage 2 or 3 BC. They all had received conventional treatments. They were all told about nutrition (Anti Cancer recommendations) and about exercise, and they all learned how to avoid stress in their lives with simple yoga exercises. The results were remarkable. The women who practiced all they were taught and made lifestyle changes had a 56% lower mortality rate. Another study showed that 9 out of 10 women who had breast cancer (out of 4000 women interviewed) had some type of traumatic event happen in their lives. WOW .... that is huge to me. Mainly because when I look at the risk factors for breast cancer I had none of them. I have always been physically fit, an athlete, and I have eaten pretty well. I have always been able to control my portions. I am not obese; I didn't start my period before the age of 12. In fact, I didn't start until I was a junior in high school; these are all mentioned in the risk factors none of them apply to me. So I guess the question to myself is, how do I thoroughly purge myself of all the trauma I have experienced in my life so that I can live a stress-free life? Is it possible to do? It's time for me to stop thinking of this as if I am a superficial observer, looking on as if it were another little girl it happened to, and look at it for what it is or was...... FEAR has paralyzed me for too long.