As the Phoenix Rises: The Ashes Remain

By Gina Drake

Childhood sexual, physical, and emotional abuse will often lead to the inability to cope with its lasting effects of pain and memories long into adulthood. Many adult survivors have difficulty adjusting, feeling isolated and alone while trying to live a normal life.

The pain often leads finding ways to cope, such as drugs and alcohol. Some will contemplate, attempt, and even succeed in taking their own life.

Whether male or female, if you were abused as a child or know someone who was, you are not alone.

If you are or know someone who is living in an abusive situation, there is hope.

If you carry the scars, both seen and unseen, feeling the burden of a pain that never goes away, please know that there are so many of us who know the suffering. You are not alone.

This is the true journey of one survivor who found healing and hope. In these pages, may you also find hope and direction in forging your own personal path to healing and breaking free of the pain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9781662486777

Book preview

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As the Phoenix Rises

The Ashes Remain

Gina Drake

Copyright © 2023 Gina Drake

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2023

Be With Me, Lord, Copyright 1963, Renewal, Leon B. Sanderson, Owner. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I’m Still Standing

Words and Music by Elton John and Bernie Taupin

Copyright © 1983 HST MGT. LTD. and ROGUE BOOZE, INC.

All Rights for HST MGT. LTD. in the United Stated and Canada Controlled and Administered by UNIVERSAL - SONGS OF POLYGRAM INTERNATIONAL, INC.

All Rights for ROGUE BOOZE, INC. in the United Stated and Canada Controlled and Administered by UNIVERSAL - POLYGRAM INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING, INC.

All rights reserved. Used by permission.

All scriptures, unless otherwise stated, are taken from the New King James Version of the Bible.

ISBN 978-1-6624-8673-9 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-8677-7 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

The Prison Is Me

Perspective

Path of Destruction

Running for My Life

Exiting the Storm

Hiding

Saving Myself from the Black Hole

Pieces of Me

Psalm 23: An Error in Prayer

The Finger of God

The Counselors

Stop the Tape

Forgiving the Unforgivable

Moving On: Finding My Happy Place

Help in Time of Need

About the Author

This work is dedicated to my husband and children, who have been steadfast in patience, love, and support of me throughout the years of pain and healing.

It is also dedicated to my mother and siblings, who shared the path of destruction.

The Prison Is Me

I had a secret place hidden in my heart.

I likened it unto a cell, locking in a part;

Things I could not share

For in that cell, the ugliness and hurt of long ago lay bare

'Twas dark. Ominous shapes I'd stuffed inside

Were lurking thereabout

Fear had kept them locked away

But it was clear…they wanted out

Never! I said; for now I have the key

Never again will you deceive. The power is in me

I ran from the cell and out into the light

Behind me screamed the dark ones, angry at their plight

I felt warm as the sun took away the night

Moving down the path, I knew

My secret place was never far from sight

I started writing poetry in middle school. I just seemed to have a talent for it. About thirty years ago, I began to write again as a way of expressing the deep pain that I had always felt. I have always had a difficult time saying what I feel in my heart when I'm upset. I forget to say things or say things in the wrong way. I wear my feelings on my sleeve, and I'm not good at hiding them. Writing things down has always helped me to convey what I find hard to express verbally. In the last thirty years, I have written poetry and made notes about my deepest thoughts and feelings of the past. These were written before, during, and after I completed counseling. It was a way to help me make sense of things. At that time, I didn't know why I kept notes. I just felt the need to do it. About ten years ago, I began to feel the need to write a book that would help other survivors. I knew I wasn't alone. There are so many of us. This book is for all of us. It is for you, the reader. You are not alone.

Although I am a Christian, I appeal to all survivors. Whatever your race, faith, financial status, education, or lack of, regardless of where you live, or your political leanings, whether male or female, we all have one thing in common: abuse of many forms. I consider all of you my brothers and sisters in survival. We share a bond that many people will never know. Let us lift one another up in love and support to walk with our heads held high that we may live with joy and dignity. It is time.

Now is the time. We have been in hiding far too long. We have lived in shame as though we did something wrong. We bear the shame and guilt of what was done to us. We have to stop. We did nothing wrong. Instead, we are actually hiding the guilt and deeds of our abusers. What will people think if they know? Will it change the way they see me? How will I tell anyone? How do I make the pain go away? These and a hundred other questions run through our minds.

This book is about coming out of the dark and my personal journey to healing. We have all had our own unique experiences and the events which molded and shaped us into who we have become. I do not claim to be an expert on the subject. I have no psychology degree. This book is based on my personal experience and the lessons of life that I learned along the way to healing. Life itself often becomes our best teacher. It is my most sincere desire that in these pages, you will see hope and direction for finding your own path to healing the pain and memories of the past.

*****

I came into adulthood with many coping skills. I developed a way of hiding the past so as to appear normal. I was comfortable with chaos. I felt right at home when someone came to me with complicated, uncomfortable problems. I was a bit uneasy with a normal and smooth life. It seemed odd, not something I was used to. I was always waiting for something bad to happen. Because I was familiar with pain and dysfunction, I felt that God wanted me to intervene and help people, whether they wanted me to or not. Actually, God was telling me that it wasn't my job and that He was doing just fine without my help. It took me several years to get the message that it wasn't my job and God never said it was.

I was always trying to explain myself as if I needed to validate my very existence. Always feeling that I had no value, I over compensated to show people that I did. I thought I was ugly and stupid and always felt very self-conscious about my appearance. I never felt clean. It wasn't until I went through counseling that I stopped taking two or three showers a day. I kept my home spotless, nearly to the point of becoming OCD. My kids hated deep cleaning twice a year. They were convinced that we were the only people in the city who washed the woodwork so often or at all. I was hiding behind cleanliness as if my environment would make me feel clean inside. It didn't, and no amount of scrubbing my body or my home would do that. I hadn't been in control of anything as a child. As an adult, my environment was the only thing I did have control over.

For some survivors, the home environment is indicative of the chaos inside themselves. Everything is a mess. As you read this, some of you are nodding your head in agreement. A thousand things are whirling around in your head. The past, the job, children, daily responsibilities, all carefully choreographed and wrapped around the pain that you can't talk about. So many things take a back seat to what is going on in our heads—a pain that never goes away, pain that we can't get rid of because we don't know how.

Then there are the people in our lives who don't understand because they can't. My husband once said to me, You're beating a dead rug. I replied by telling him that the dead rug was a flying carpet that would take me away if I let it. He never said it again, but I knew that he didn't get it because he couldn't. Think of the people in your life. Would you want them to go through the same abuse and horrors that