When I reflect on my story there are 4 primary components:
- Abandonment – my father died when I was just 7 years old and I definitely felt abandoned. Abandoned by my father and abandoned by God.
- Sexual Impurities – Introduced to me at 8 and 9 years old – A much older kid asking me to touch him in the middle of the night when he slept over my house. Peers introducing porn to me.
- Sexual abuse – My Youth Pastor of my home church grooming and molesting me from 13- 16 years of age.
- Bipolar – Mental health issues where explored throughout my childhood. The reality of this would not be recognized until I was 30 years old. It would be another 13 years until the truth was accepted by me about being bipolar.
External behaviors were the primary indicator of these factors.
Let me repeat that.
External behaviors were the primary indicators of these factors.
When I look at the list, I do not see myself at fault. I did not create any of which is on the list. It certainly had LARGE impact on me though and I embraced it and fed it. AND…I have had to own it ALL.
In fact, I have had to be the one to unravel it all. Here is what I see as a primary problem when trying to recover from life’s trauma’s:
Often, the focal point we as humans make, is on the behavior.
- When I was fearful or insecure, I made poor choices and followed others who led me to trouble, there were consequences.
- When my focus on my sexual desires caused me to make poor choices, there were consequences.
- When my rage took over and I said things I shouldn’t have, there were consequences.
- When my rage took over and I took detached actions, there were consequences.
Sometimes the consequences were direct results of my behavior. Other times the consequences were realized from within. Meaning, my choices caused bad circumstances and the bad circumstances was the consequence.
Consequences for our behaviors is reality. Consequences for our behaviors can be a good or a bad result. Meaning, if I speed and get pulled over, the consequences are bad. I get a ticket. If I give someone something special, the consequences are good. I may get personal satisfaction out of helping someone, or I may get a thank you.
Often, the focal point we as humans make, is on the behavior.
While this is quite the normal reaction, especially when there are victims at the end of the behavior, it so imperative to ask the why.
We can only hope that somewhere along the path someone intervenes and asks the why. We can only hope that God grants us the grace that our behavior does not end in a life altering impact to someone else. We can only hope for ourselves that we don’t end our life early not by suicide, but by consequence.
My story has abuse in it. It is an elixir of physical and sexual abuse. It is a toxic path I was led to that most likely contributed to activating mental health issues. It had consequences. By the grace of God by self-conscience and intervention by others, my story has a positive outcome.
The idea behind consequences for negative behavior, is to give negative results. The discipline is supposed to cause a person to not repeat the behavior. The problem with this concept is, if we never find out the root cause by asking the why, we have done nothing but hope this will change a person’s behavior.
We stop short of truly helping someone who is often hurting for reasons we are unaware of.
This is my story. Unfortunately, it is a common story.
I can only leave you with gratitude. I am grateful that the people who were present in my formative years, provided me with enough structure to make it into my adult life to find my way out of the mess. I am grateful that God provided me with the most beautiful loving caring wife on the planet, who has put up with my garbage and has loved me unconditionally throughout our 24 years of marriage. I am grateful that God put people in my life to help me find Jesus and walk the path to be a better person for the better of service and LOVE for my wife, my family, my friends and most of ALL – MY JESUS.