Strength Through The Struggle

There was a time in my 30’s and 40’s when I wanted to change my name. Not my first name. I was good with that. I considered changing my family name. Growing up I had a number of experiences that landed for me in a negative way. I was molested at the age of 6 and again at the age of 9. I experienced physical as well as mental and emotional abuse. My father was fond of telling me, “You aren’t worth the powder to blow you to hell.” I heard that “I wasn’t worth the powder to blow me to hell,” so many times that I actually started to believe it to be true. It was a lie, but in my young mind, I couldn’t make sense of it. Why would my father say such a thing if it wasn’t true? I came to the conclusion that I was broken beyond repair. I’m not saying it made good sense for me to end up believing that lie. Those words along with the other forms of abuse seemed to validate each other. Through that process, I came to believe there was something inherently wrong with me. That I was fundamentally broken. And seeing myself