Find Your Voice!

Tomorrow I turn 62. 45 years ago, I escaped from my abuser…my father. From age 5-17 he molested me.

The memories have always been vivid and haunting, and sometimes torturous. For so many years I was filled with anger and rage. Sometimes, that rage, would even be towards myself. I was hiding behind walls of guilt and shame, fear, desperation, and mistrust of everyone. I felt invisible.

No one heard my voice. No one saw the signs. No one came to rescue me. So instead of waiting for someone to rescue me, I learned how to hide. I built a suit of armor to shield me from reality.

Poetry-My Voice

As a child I had so much love to give.
My trust was blind until I was betrayed.
When innocence was stolen in the night
something sacred was taken I’m afraid.

I hid behind the chaos in my mind.
I hid behind the weeping willow trees.
I hid behind the hatred in my heart.
Eventually it brought me to my knees.

I prayed to God in heaven day and night.
I prayed that he would save me from my hell.
I prayed that he’d forgive me for my sins,
then he delivered me from Satan’s spell.

For so many years I suffered silently.
and so many times I thought I had no choice,
but Jesus heard my cries and rescued me,
yes my Lord in heaven gave me back my voice.

© September 15, 2011-Susan Maree Jeavons

My life did not change until I surrendered it to God. This transformation did not happen overnight though. For many years I couldn’t even bring myself to trust God. Sometimes I even blamed my heavenly father for what my earthly father did to me. But as I grew I learned that God was not the guilty party. Neither was I.

Sometime in my twenties, I found my voice; the gift of poetry. Through my poetry I could share my feelings, my fears and my successes. It was a fluid process of transformation. Each time I wrote a poem that I felt was helpful in my healing, I felt a sense of fulfillment, a sense of purpose.

What ever stage of healing you are in, writing about your childhood abuse can be cathartic. Whether you share what you write or not, is your decision, but I know, as a survivor and a poet, that God’s gift to me of being able to write, saved my life…

Prayers For Healing,
Susasn Maree Jeavons

Healing Addictions

I am inclined to believe
that old habits,
engraved on my brain
remain there to relieve
my pain
and are necessary
to prevent me
from going insane…

© 2002 Susan Maree Jeavons

From Woman to Crone

There is peace in my aloneness now,
unlike when I was a young woman
whose seclusion almost drove her mad.
I use to believe that I had wasted
so much time, until at last,
I understood the lessons.

These wrinkles you see,
they are all a part of me
and with the passage of time
and the acceptance of memories,
both bitter and sweet, healing began
and wisdom was born out of misery.

© 2002 Susan Maree Jeavons

In The Feeling

There is a terror
in the remembering,
a terror of the truth,
a terror of the unknown
and the known.

There is a settling
in the knowing,
a settling of my inner spirit
when accepting my setbacks,
my weaknesses, my victories.

There is a cleansing
in the grief,
a cleansing of the toxins
that pervaded my existence,
threatened my sanity.

There is a freedom
in the telling,
freedom from a life time
of secrecy and lies,
shame and silence.

There is a healing
at long last,
a healing of body, mind and spirit,
born of determination, courage and hope
a healing, at long last
a hard-fought-for healing...

© 2004 Susan Maree Jeavons