I remember the day that my DV Counselor told me I needed more support, more interactions with women in a safe place. She not only told me but made it a requirement if I wanted to continue counseling.
So, on my own I started my search for a place of safety and support with women, women I would actually, just maybe, or by the grace of god, let them know me; someone even I, myself, had never met.
I tried support groups at the YWCA. I found them helpful and educational but I wasn’t finding a connection and ran out of every meeting as soon as it was over. There is a lot of pain in those rooms!!
I’ve come to know that not only battered, bloody, and broken souls sit in those rooms at the YWCA, but also women of great courage, strength, amazing survival skills, and perhaps this thing called “Self Love” fill those chairs.
I clicked on the Catherine Place website. I have been blessed with an intuition that is rarely wrong. I’m not sure if I was born with it or if it came to me as a child who had to see the invisible in order to be prepared and ready to survive things most people will never see in a lifetime. Either way it’s mine!
The minute I clicked on Catherine Place I knew…I knew with every part of my wisdom that this house was a safe place, a kind place, a real (not pretend) place. I would even go as far to say I knew it was a home. I have zero concept of what a HOME should feel like or look like.
I emailed my situation and requested to join a group. Even though I got a response right away, I stuffed it down inside me real deep with no intentions of ever showing up to meet other women or letting anyone close enough to remember my name.
I believe there are times God does things for me that I can not do for myself. I believe God puts people in my path and removes some as well. There was a woman named Mary who called me every single week to reach out and invite me to events happening at Catherine Place. I never answered my phone and Mary would leave a message so kind and caring.
I intuitively knew she was REAL and not a person that I needed to fear. This scared me!! I was terrified of this kindness and at the same time my gut kept telling me to jump in!!
To this day I struggle with these feelings.
I did it!! I joined the Women’s Spirit Circle Group (Pre- Covid). I drove myself to Catherine Place (driving myself anywhere was a huge giant step for me). I didn’t ask permission to go, I didn’t defend my crazy self who needs support, I just did it, even though I got lost almost every time I went to Catherine Place, I still never gave up and I showed up! Always feeling a bit calmer when I knew Mary was there.
It hasn’t been easy. I have never experienced Women eating at a table together. I only knew how to serve others at a table. I knew how to keep quiet and disappear at a table. Eating a meal at Catherine Place was very hard for me to choke down without having this huge lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. I had no desire to scope out the nearest bathroom so I could vomit up any nutrients I ate. My bulimia stayed quiet and allowed me to be worthy of “what goes down stays down”.
I did well in the group and even tried REKI which left me with the most profound experience. My goal is to love myself enough to someday try this thing called a Bio-Mat. All I can do is try.
Which brings me to my closing. With Mary’s help I’m proud to say that I love myself enough to be the proud owner of a ZOOM account!! Yes, I love myself enough to belong to Zoom which means being still and stillness is scary.
Last week Mary and I Zoomed and my goal this week is to Zoom with other women in a group setting!!