The Cycle of Control: the power struggle

     Do you feel that since the children have been gone that your life has been changed upside down? You feel like someone else is holding the strings to your existence? Well many women go through that struggle where they feel that they can't get a handle on what's going on.
     On January 21st my life changed in the worst way possible.  My babies that I had loved for so long were being taken.  Through no fault of their own, they were now wards of the state.  A situation I promised myself I would never allow my children to have to bear witness to.
    Along with the changes that was going on with the kids, came my marriage on the rocks.  I went from being a newly wed, to a foster mom for two years and then a potential divorcee and my world as I knew it was no more.  The blame game started and the constant arguments and then the feeling of betrayal.  I truly felt like someone else was holding the strings to my life and was pulling whenever they felt like it, I had no control.  No control over my emotions, my fears, my heart ache, and my anxiety.  I couldn't control when they came on and when they left.  I experimented with the doctor the little pink pill, but that just made me feel more out of control; that someone was saying that in order for me to be better that this was the magical way to healing.  I could not agree to that, so I talked to my doctor about natural forms of therapy, that's when the gardening started.
     I grew tomatoes, peas, watermelon, parsley an assortment of vegetables.  Being out doors seemed to help me, then I decided well my mamma sewed and so I could try that and see if there was a niche there for me and so I began sewing.  That didn't last long, I loved it but the hassle of cutting and measuring seemed too much work for me to be relaxed so I stuck to the gardening.

 Now I am three years into the babies being gone and my marriage feels like it is in more turmoil.  When a family goes through a situation as major as removal of children whether they were your own biological or not, the effect is still felt and the damage is still done.  We have been through therapy and anger management and all sorts of counseling, but its only going to be by the power of God that healing will come into this house.  Don't ever fool yourself to thinking that you will not be affected.  I had many days where I didn't love my husband, many days where I didn't feel like working on my marriage.  I have felt days where the power struggle was so real that I wanted to quit.  I wanted to run away from the problems, but we all know that, that solves nothing.
" time heals all wounds", sometimes I wonder if this was birthed by someone that didn't suffer the way I was suffering.  I was constantly angry, not so much at my husband, but at myself for not doing more, not demanding more, not requiring more.  My husband blamed me for everything.  He blamed me for the kids being taken, for not doing enough to make the family work again, for not being a good enough mother, for not trying hard enough with the marriage.  I was suffering silently and had no one to lean on, to share my fears and my hurts.  I felt like an emotional mess.  So that's when I started #dayzAfter.  I wanted it to be a platform where women could talk about issues of hurt and betrayal and find ways to live and love again.  I wanted to offer women who felt like I felt in those early days where I believed all those negative things about myself and couldn't quite figure out who I was anymore.  A platform for women who felt out of control with their own lives and wanted to take back control.  It wasn't until #DayzAfter was birthed that I started to feel alive again.  My life had purpose again, it had meaning.  I want to offer that to other women.
You can live and love again.  you just have to dare to: Dream, Empower, Transform, Live and love again.
     ~Dayzafter