Tag: #Awareness

Lessons Learned on IsLand

Part 2. This story was finished on December 7, 2018. The author is a work in progress. 🙂

You must not only survive after catastrophe and trauma, you must extend yourself; thrive, flourish, nourish, sustain, maintain. Cultivate your own seeds of faith and patience garden. Stand up for yourself, especially when you stand alone. Respect other people; expect respect in return. Someone who does not respect you has no place in your life. Have NO CONTACT with the perpetually dysfunctional and/or the perpetrators of abuse. Realize that if a pattern of abuse is working for them, they are highly unlikely to change of their own volition. They may say things like, “If you really loved me, you would want to be in my life.” Remain silent, do not engage in their quest for negative attention. Any response gives them their “fix.” The truth is, if they respected you and your personal boundaries, they would change their behavior toward you. Accept the fact that some people will never change. If you want change, be the change. Make waves when waves are necessary.

Give thanks and be grateful. I am thankful for the opportunity to write today, practicing the Art of Becoming. Become beautiful from the inside out. Contrary to popular opinion, appearance is NOT everything. Sometimes beauty is only on the surface. Choose a beauty that endures and grows within. What will you have left when your “youthful beauty” fades? Always be willing to change when circumstances deem change necessary. Bend but don’t break. Become fluid, like water; no longer petrified like a piece of wood turned to stone.

November 27, 2017. I was homeless, jobless. I was no spring chicken. The security and stability of the safest home I ever had went up in a puff of smoke. That morning, I was filled with hope that the dysfunction and effects of trauma, abuse, coercive control, were losing the battle for my family, my very life. By nightfall, I was in a state of grief and shock, unable to comprehend the sudden devastation. I had to let go to hold on, focusing on the changes necessary in my woman’s heart. Healing must begin with myself before I can help anyone else.

The Sea of Humanity calls me; it is my last day on IsLand. I found my buried treasure and I wrote my own message on the Wall of Words. I cross the Pool of Reflection and gaze one final time into the Inside Out Mirror. I have no idea if my hair looks perfect, or if the outfit I’m wearing makes me look fat. Inside, I see the true beauty of a joyful, forgiven and forgiving woman’s heart. I can leave the cave called UrHere since I have crossed the abyss to the other side of dysfunction.

Words written in sand were words that had to be acknowledged, but not memorialized. I leave them here on the shore of IsLand to be washed away by the tides of time; they have served their purpose and will only sink me. I push my canoe into the waters and paddle away. Looking forward, not back, I wave.

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I Heard Him Say, “Follow Me.”

When God gives me My Daily Med

A dose of His Word and time with Him. That is My Daily Med.  This morning, before My Daily Med, I went on Social Media to “connect”.

I went on one, where I have friends. “I’ll be your Friend” He said.

I flew to another where there are followers. “Follow Me” He said.

So, I opened my Bible and this is what I read.

An old My Daily Med–this morning I needed a reminder.

☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️

“FOLLOWING JESUS and living according to God’s ways is often contrary to the world’s values. A righteous life can be very unpopular in today’s culture…it’s how we’re called to live. When Jesus said, ‘Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’ (Mt. 5:10), He acknowledged we’d pay a price for our obedience and right desires…He encourages us to a sure hope, the promise of the priceless future that awaits…bring your Savior any pain you feel because of wrongful treatment…in His presence, earthly troubles fade and the assurance of Heaven becomes very real.”

Now is your time to enter into His service–no longer as His orphaned baby girl, but as His woman. He has loosed you so that you might loose others in His name.

I follow Him. I make a plan, He changes it, like My Daily Med this morning…He wanted me to read the above message first. I follow His lead.

COASTAL COERCIVE CONTROL COALITIONN

My mission is to share with people from every walk of life the truth of the devastating effects of coercive control. AWARENESS.

As I hear His voice, I will share it to EDUCATE anyone and everyone on how to be free of coercive control.

PREVENTION of coercive control can increase when these abusers face

PROSECUTION for their calculated pattern of abusive behavior through sometimes unlawful means.

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Wee Folk

Enjoying life and feeling joy in simple things is still very important in my life. This morning I want to share some of my mushroom pictures from this past week.

The shadow is my car, I drove right over this mushroom, but my tires didn’t touch it… Survivor!
Out walking with our furbabies, I have to scout, pretend I haven’t noticed anything, then sneak back for a pic, otherwise the mushrooms will be trampled.
Neighbors 🙂
Sunshine on a cloudy day.
Perfect posture. My grandmother would be pleased.
Emerging

Even in the midst of personal problems, when you feel small and unnoticed, know that you are not alone. Find something to bring you out of yourself and back into the world. Walks in nature do this for me. I always feel better after I clear my head in the great outdoors

Sometimes, you have to allow happiness to find you in little ways when there is no great happiness in sight. Feeling helpless and hopeless makes and keeps people sick.

Personal experience has taught me to create my own action where there’s been no action. When you hear, “There’s nothing you can do.” don’t believe it. Your life experience can be an important way to connect with others who feel isolated and alone, scared, intimidated, humiliated, exploited, worthless.

Creating the Coastal Coercive Control Coalition, aka C4, during Domestic Violence Awareness month is how I decided to fight for my own right to live abuse free and also share my journey to wholeness. Naysayers, get out of my way!

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C4 Coastal Coercive Control Coalition

My sister’s headstone. Eleven years and two days of living dependent on our mother for her care. The man we used to call Daddy used financial abuse as a means to control our mother when she finally became physically sick at the sight of him and started divorce proceedings. He escalated this financial abuse to the point that my sister and mother were homeless. His own brain damaged daughter became collateral damage in his determination to subjugate, humiliate, control our mother for leaving him; although it was his repeated affairs that sickened her to the point that she felt repulsed in his presence. This was her unforgivable crime. My sister died a victim of his neglect and financial abuse. My mother is still damaged by his coercive control through financial abuse.

This is the poem on my sister’s grave:

A Prayer for the Helpless

Let me be a voice

For the speechless

Those who are small and weak

Let me speak

For all helpless creatures

Who have no power to speak

I have lifted my heart

To Heaven

On behalf of the least of these

The frightened

The homeless

The hungry

I am voicing their pleas

If I can help any creature

Respond to a desperate call

I will know that

My prayers have been answered

By the God who created

Them all

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My Daily Med–Being A Godly Influence Daniel:1

Often we try to separate our personal lives from our spiritual lives. Many see Jesus as a way to Heaven and the solution to spiritual problems, but they fail to see that He is the solution to all of life’s problems.

We don’t have to be prominent in the world’s eyes to be an influential person. Through your example and testimony, you can help others understand who Jesus Christ is and what it looks like to live for Him.

Daniel was a godly influence not only on his friends but also on kings. Even as a youth, he was committed to obeying God’s law. When Daniel was offered food from the Babylonian king’s table, he requested vegetarian meals instead, to comply with Jewish dietary restrictions. His commitment to the Lord outweighed any fear of reprisal for rejecting the royal provisions. And God protected Daniel by giving him favor with his overseer.

Most of us won’t have an opportunity to influence global leaders but our example can impact a workplace, neighborhood, home, or future generations. A godly example is rooted in obedience to Scripture because it’s the source of wisdom. In a world tossed about by upheaval, fear, uncertainty, pandemic, our confidence in the Lord stands out and influences those around us.

I have chosen to be honest about my life behind closed doors. The truth of family dysfunction, abuse, neglect, abandonment, and in the course of my own healing, I pray that sharing my knowledge gained through decades of experience will fulfill the mission of my new endeavor called…

C4

The Coastal Coalition on Coercive Control. Awareness. Education. Prevention. Prosecution.

Light in the Darkness

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Our Mama/Momma and V-Her Protector

I called her yesterday because I rescheduled my appointment in town. I bake a pan of cornbread for her and she freezes it. Despising V does not keep me from loving our Mama/Momma.

I call my mother our Mama/Momma in my writing because her girls spelled it differently. When I write to her on cards, letters, gifts, I spell her name Mama. When Sheila wrote to her on cards, letters, gifts, she spelled her name Momma. Yes. To me her name is Mama and Mama is another word for love.

But that V!!! Anyway, I knew I had to let her know so she wouldn’t be waiting and wondering about me and her cornbread. Our conversation went well. I really do miss my Mama….

Kabtn Khawaga. My father. His First Mate V. She is the protector of Mama/Momma. You have to go through V sometimes to get to Mama/Momma. V is Vicious. Kabtn Khawaga dispenses dysfunction like some men pass out business cards. But he does it behind closed doors.

Khawaga Kid. My memoir. I can write freely now, not blocked by the last secret. The secret of V.

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Shadow Woman Speaks

I was mad at God because He won’t heal my broken family. I cannot heal my family by remaining in contact with them, but they can keep me sick. Yes, I was mad at God. Now, I am reconciled and I rely on Him to heal me.

Domestic Violence and Coercive Control. You have to fight to be free even when it means having an estranged, distant, or even monitored relationship with family members still held hostage behind the closed doors of homes all over the world.

Freedom starts in your mind. You don’t have to remain a hostage to the not so secret family secrets. I will be 58 soon. I am estranged from my entire family. It’s me and Hubby together against the world.

Mama V. Seventy-five in December. I am the only child she has living. I am the only person, especially through the Covid pandemic, that gets her to her appointments. I shop for her. Our relationship is one of control, manipulation, domination, humiliation.

V for Vicious. The woman I ran away from in 1979. The final secret of life behind the closed doors of my family. Nothing is off limits when I do not please her. She has lied to people about me and they believe her.

My parents are in what I call the Family Court Case from Hell. My parents, aged 77 and soon to be 75 have been apart since they were in their thirties. They only agree on one thing. Me. Their Khawaga Kid. I became a problem when I stopped being held hostage in my mind and emotions.

I have been humiliated time and again by the antics of the two people who brought me into this world. As their scapegoat, I became angry at God because I had to endure their insanity that once was “love”. No person, professional, clergy, agency has help for me. I felt worthless. If not for my husband as a living witness to the high degree of dysfunction in my family, I would not be here.

Yes. I was suicidal. My reality? No one believed how life really is as the adult daughter of two abusers. Not just Kabtn Khawaga…also his First Mate V. Khawaga Kid. That’s me. I may be a foreigner in this world and an outcast in my family, but I live in the safest home I ever had with my family of one, my husband.

This is my blog diary as I prepare to kick off a new endeavor called the Coastal Coercive Control Coalition, and as I preare for NaNoWriMo 2020.

I’m writing Egyptian Minutes for NaNoWriMo 2020. It’s a short story collection about my times in Egypt.

My memoir Khawaga Kid is still, like me, a work in progress.

Wires of Connectivity
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Beautiful Package, Beautiful Gift

Colossians 1:9-11. 9) For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10) that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11) strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy;

The greater part of your attractiveness–the part that draws or attracts others to you–is on the inside. If you are only concerned with what you look like, you are going to be a very shallow, superficial person. People are going to find that once they have quit playing with you, the box you came in was beautifully wrapped, but empty.

Return to the Source of your attractiveness–the Holy Spirit of God. He is the One who woos and wins the heart. When you are the Holy Spirit’s woman, He will draw you to the right people for the right purposes at just the right time.

C4 the Coastal Coercive Control Coalition Campaign kick-off on a coastal beach. Initial scouting October 14, 2020. October 31, 2020. Join me in celebrating the birth of a coalition.

Put the truth in your spirit and feed, nurture, and allow it to grow. Quit telling yourself, “You’re too fat, too old, too late, or too ignorant.” Stop feeding yourself that garbage.

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David Challen speaks out to help other victims of coercive control within the family.

On 3rd July, a statement by David Challen was read out in the House of Commons, in front of a panel of domestic violence campaigners and activists which included Harriet Wistrich of Centre for Women’s Justice, Afsana Lachaux, Rebecca Humphries, Huda Jawad, Peter Manning OBE and Fatima Mourad. The event was titled ‘Coercive Control Within […]

David Challen speaks out to help other victims of coercive control within the family.
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Shadow Woman the Actor?

I act because it’s been easier to be a character. The Patriarchal Terrorist I used to call Daddy acts all the time. Behind closed doors he shows his true self, but I still have to act.

Act like nothing is wrong. The perfect family facade. I’ve been a hostage since October 31, 1962. I didn’t know how to break free of the Coercive Control. But I stepped out of the shadows after hearing once again,”There is nothing you can do.”

But there is something I can do. I can be a voice for the voiceless. I have founded the

C4 the Coastal Coercive Control Coalition

Preparing for my first Awareness Event in Gulfport, Mississippi on October 14, 2020.

I’m free; free to be me. Who am I? Advocate. Educator. Sharing what I have learned. With every agency, doctor, attorney, clergy, family, friends; even the Patriarchal Terrorist himself told me, “There’s nothing you can do.”

Your Move

My husband treats me like a queen. He was there on November 16, 2006 when you decided to drop back into my life. Fourteen years of not letting you drop back out when things didn’t go your way. You, the Patriarchal Terrorist.

In my memoir, you are Kabtn Khawaga and I am your Khawaga Kid.

In my fiction, you are Rico Mack and I am Khaki Mack. Rico Mack is kingpin of the Coastal Cartel. I am your nemesis, your worst nightmare; the daughter most like you, and you despise me for knowing your truth.

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