My son’s first night at Church youth group. Anxiety.

I have anxiety. Inwardly, rather than outwardly. My stomach is letting me know I have anxiety, as I feel nauseous.

I do know it is absolutely okay that I have anxiety about my son attending a church youth group. Especially when we’ve only just started attending the church and I don’t know the people there yet.

It is also okay that I have anxiety, because church has not previously been a positive experience at all, for me, or my son and family. So, it is normal to feel concerned, worried and be anxious.

My rational mind is thinking it will be most likely be fine, he will most likely be safe and have a great time.

My anxious mind, that has a great deal of knowledge of widespread church issues and poor attitudes regarding potentially or known abusive people …… is reminding me just how badly churches can f*** it up, when it comes to keeping kids/teenagers safe.

I need a drink.

*sigh.

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Update on this blog. Found out the youth group is finishing at the end of this term. So,

So deeply sad to know, I would probably have been better off in foster care.

It is a sad state of grieving, to know I would have probably been less abused and less neglected, had I been put into foster care. Yes, the foster care system is not always positive and abuse and neglect does occur. It is also traumatising for children to be removed from their family. And that is so sad for everyone who endures this.

But, I also need to acknowledge, I probably would have been better off, if this had happened to me.

Being the survivor of complex trauma and every kind of abuse, including being sexually exploited by my mother and step father, for their paedophile and sex offender friends, I may very well have been better off in foster care.

My mother is a narcissist and has sociopath traits and my step father was a sociopath, so the levels of emotional, mental and psychological abuse, were profound, severe and continuing. Throughout my entire childhood. And knowing it is your own parents who caused such severe intentional abuse, is worse than anyone else doing it. It causes such deep wounds, to know your own parents wanted you to suffer and continually made you suffer.

I don’t have a pre-trauma identity. Severe ongoing complex trauma and abuse, was occurring from my earliest memories and no doubt prior to that.

The rain makes the garden even more beautiful =)

I love how the garden and all the plants look after the rain. All the raindrops on the leaves and flowers.

I love all the different flowers, foliage and textures within my garden too. It’s fascinating 🙂

I’ve been playing with the macro feature on my camera too. Makes a difference to just taking snaps on my phone camera.