I used to wonder what I would feel when my stepfather died. On June 8th, around 2:30 am, I received the call that he had passed.

My mother was asleep in the room next to ours. I had picked her up earlier that Sunday. Before going to my house she asked me if I would mind taking her by the nursing home for a quick visit. There were times that I would have made an excuse not to, but on this day I easily obliged. She was in and out within 15 minutes, and was concerned because she could not wake him and he hadn’t yet eaten his food. I made dinner and we watched a movie, but all night she kept saying that it didn’t seem right that she could not do anything to rouse him from sleep.

My mother does not spend the night often. The fact that she was here, where I could immediately console her and take care of all the things that needed to be done was no coincidence. I don’t believe in coincidences. It was divine timing. It was God, angels, and loved ones gone before us that ordered the events that unfolded, and it was an answer to prayer.

I had forgiven him and come to the place where I didn’t wish for him to linger, suffering. He had asked for my forgiveness throughout the years. I know it didn’t change who he was, but it did help me in terms of learning to release the pain and trauma that my body was constantly reminding me of.

I felt peace. I felt a huge burden had been lifted, and the air I was breathing seemed new and energizing, as opposed to recycled from a painful time in my past.

My CPTSD attacks  have lessened dramatically, and when depression or anxiety creep up, I surrender through prayer and meditation, asking what it is I am intended to learn through it. God has rewarded me for my faith by bringing me to this new place of hope and strength from which I can confidently march through these valleys, knowing that new blessings and opportunities are coming my way.

Time used to pass differently when I was young. Whenever I was overlooked or mistreated at work  I always knew that something bigger and better would come around, and it always did. Soon into my 2nd failed marriage, time seemed to stand still, and I was hanging by a thread. I didn’t see it then, but I was falling back into the same victim/perpetrator dynamic so familiar to me, and I spent the next 20 years in survival mode.

The level of dissociation and sheer madness and sorrow reached its apex this past spring, and as I began to see my way out of the darkness, I was also more acutely aware of the spiritual signs that were harnessing what was left of my faith, as I let go of the judgements of others and graciously accepted the long months of poverty, and paralyzation, instead recognizing them as a time for gentle healing, to relinquish my fears and just “be” Valerie.

Ed’s death had given me closure.

This week there has been a full moon in Aquarius and something major happening astrologically, called the 8/8 Lions Gate Portal. It is a time of increased cosmic energy flowing between the physical and spiritual realms. It has been observed and honored since Ancient Egypt as a time of great energetic influx and activation. I have experienced the greatest amount of sustained peace and joy I have ever felt. I have been brought to my knees in tears over the manifestation of my heart’s longings, and just as quickly, bitch-slapped by potentially triggering circumstances. The difference between how I used to react, (waiting for the other shoe to drop-syndrome) and how I have, instead, responded to these incidents, is also divinely guided. I have felt the presence of angels and such intense heavenly love, through a voice connected to a beckoning in my heart.

It is for that reason that the situation I am about to show a recording of occurred.

I was having lunch with my mother at our favorite spot when a man walked in. He looked straight at me. There was a vague familiarity about him. Part of me wanted to dismiss what I quickly realized, that this was the stepbrother who had molested me. He absolutely pretended not to see my mother and I as he bellied up to the lunch counter. I was overcome with intense emotion, knowing that this was ordained. I have never, ever, “bumped” into him before. The fact that this was happening in the midst of so much enexpected good fortune, made it easy to muster the strength needed to confront him. I am still reeling, trying to process my feelings around it.

I captured it with my phone. I am sharing it with the hope that it will empower others to step out of the shadows and break their silence. To pretend it never happened, to feel muted by other’s insistence that they simply “get over it”; to self-sabotage out of the deep shame felt over having no control of the abuse, is to give victory to the perpetrator. A part of the confrontation that cannot be heard was my stepbrother telling me that I was “just like (his sister) Lorraine, who refused to get over it and move on.”

What Lorraine refused to “get over” was being raped and impregnated by her own biological father and dealing with an abortion as a young teen.

I am putting this man’s shame out for the world to see, with no regrets or fear of retaliation. I would love to see him try to silence me.

For years I brushed his abuse aside and pretended my wounds were healed, going so far as to invite him to my wedding. It wasn’t until my CPTSD manifested after the stunning realization that I had married yet another toxic man, that I sought justice after learning from a counselor that there is no statute of limitations on sexual abuse in the state of VA. Twice I attempted to file charges, feeling so empowered. Twice I had to graphically re-call what had been done to me, and both times, though this man works for the City of Virginia Beach, I was told that they could not get in touch with him for a response. I even had a phone conversation with my stepfather recorded by the police, where he admitted to abusing me, and allowing his son to get away with it as well. I was forced to let it go, until Friday afternoon, August 16, 2019.

This is what unfolded –

Here is a replay, in case you missed what he did upon acknowledging me-

“We see your rants and everything on the computer.”

“We” being himself and his fiance’/girlfriend of 40 years, who is allegedly a virgin, saving herself for marriage. They don’t even live together. They are both approaching or beyond 60. She is somewhere between believing that I am a liar, and a seductive child-whore. I am not friends with them on social media. My mother is, likely, but that is a whole other issue. My point is that in order for either of them to see anything of mine, it would take some active stalking. I’m willing to lay money on which one of them is doing that.  But I digress.

Forgiveness is empowering because it releases you from the burden of hatred and resentment, but it is an ongoing process. Just because I have forgiven does not mean that I will ever forget the hell I’ve endured. It means that I acknowledge that nobody is exempt from making horrible mistakes that hurt others, and I pardon the trespasses of others, as I too ask to be pardoned from my own. I know the Lord’s Prayer, and I live it daily. There is no escape in denial. It is like the wolf in sheep’s clothing, and it creates layer after layer of continuously mounting lies; lies so ingrained that a person actually feels emboldened enough to proclaim that God will judge the unrighteous, without even recognizing that person as himself. 

I have no need to stutter or nervously use scripture as a shield to defend myself. And truly, God does know who the liar is.

To all the people who have taken advantage of me, who have projected their bitterness and insecurity, taking delight in my failures, disregarding my Phoenix-like strength to rise above any attempts to cause me undue strife:

DO NOT FUCK WITH ME.

I hereby proclaim myself to be unfuckwithable.

It is a glorious day, indeed.