When Darkness Invited Surrender

…I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. -John 8:12

No part of me ever wanted anything to do with my biological father. Not as a kid when he was writing me letters from jail and certainly not as a young adult when he randomly started showing up at my job. I was too young and naive to understand the pain that he caused, I simply took what others had said about him for face value, and it was never good. Being his name sake, I also inadvertently internalized his monster as my own. 

When family members lead unhappy lives or suffer an extremely difficult fate, it’s often easier to reject them than to feel the pain of loving them. Anger is often an easier emotion to feel than sadness.

M. Wolynn

Until her passing, my mom short of, or probably did actually hate the man. If I mentioned anything of him in even the slightest it was shot down with contempt from her. I can’t remember her ever saying any one good thing about him. Granted he did have quite a terrible rap sheet, but it often made me question how she could have joined forces with such a monster to create me and I internalized it some more. 

After her passing, the pain of losing her was more than I had ever anticipated and so it left me questioning if the same would be true for the parent I didn’t know. I quickly shrugged off the idea, my mind going down the list of awful things he’d done. At the time I was in the darkest point of my life, and believe me when I say I was no stranger to the darkness. Complex PTSD often kept me spiraling into a dark abyss and losing my mother brought up everything I tried to keep hidden in that abyss. It was honestly scary as I sat in the depths of my sorrow, emotionless, numb to the world; my demons inviting me to surrender to the darkness as a way of feeling better. I’d be lying if said I didn’t at atleast once consider how good it would feel to unleash those demons as I had done so many times before. I could’ve lashed out and made others feel my pain, I could’ve gone back and engaged in self sabotage, as I had perfected prior. Grieving the death of my mother would’ve been the perfect excuse. 

It wasn’t until I came across Mark Wolynn’s book, It Didn’t Start With You (How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle), that I began to question the many coincidences that allowed me to believe that going down that dark road was a one way ticket with no return in sight. It was no secret in our family that when my maternal Grandmothers father passed three months shy of her 32nd birthday, she “lost her mind” as they so eloquently put it in the 1950’s. Then the treatment to her debilitating anxiety was electroshock therapy, which seemed to just fry her brain and shock the anxiety into the next generations 🤦🏽‍♀️. It’s been said that my grandmother was never the same after her father died, it hit her that hard. 

Interestingly enough, I was also three months shy of my 32nd birthday when my mothers passing hit me harder than any trauma I’d ever experienced. Which confused me, as for years I was so sure that her death wouldn’t even phase me at all since I wasn’t really sure that I even loved the woman. When this came to light, the invitation to live in darkness began to seem more like a trap than an invitation. But still, I had to choose the light over the darkness and though it may seem like a no brainer, for someone so comfortable in darkness, it too was scary. 

But that fear only lasted so long. The scariest parts became branching out of my norm to do things that would better myself. Instead of engaging in my usual, I started doing things out of the ordinary for myself. One of those things was church hopping with my best friend. During this time I had begun to talk to God and in the midst fragments of things I knew began to piece together the puzzle of my inherited family trauma. Though still hard and unfair, I became aware that I was fighting a battle so many women before me lost, to include my mother and grandmother. I knew what not to do (for example the things I had done in the past that didn’t work) and I looked to God for answers on what to do. 

When I had finally found a church home, my first visit there the entire service my biological father was on my mind. And slowly, as God so graciously does with me, He began introducing the idea that it was finally time to truly meet my father. Not necessarily as my father but rather as the man, the individual he is. I vividly remember when this came up and I laughed so hard I started crying before thinking oh God, no. I can’t. What about the things he’s done. But immediately my spirit reminded me that not only am I not in a place to judge, but he is someone who makes up 49.8% of my DNA and regardless of what he has done, there was a lot that could be learned. Not necessarily about him, but instead about myself through him.

When we cut ourselves off from our parents, the qualities we view as negative in them can express in us unconsciously.

M. Wolynn

And so the challenge began of surrendering to the light.

:::::::::: Strategies for wellness‼️ :::::::::::

•Feed your spirit:Future Unlimited
•Feed your soul: Check out Mark Wolynn’s It Didn’t Start With You. 
•Feed your body: take a moment each day to step outside and bring awareness to your breathing.