Know Who's Loving You!

By Jiga

Looking back, she wondered how things had gone so wrong for so long. Fifteen years of her life had been wasted believing in a man who had finally hunted her down and tried to have her killed.
To the very end, she had refused to believe he was anything but the Peter she had believed in all those years. In the face of irrefutable evidence, she had simply looked the other way.
She had known for years that he watched every single breath she took, that at his behest she was monitored like a lab experiment; and it did not end with her. All of her family, every place she had worked, everywhere she had turned, there was his surveillance. He simply did not accept that anyone had a right to privacy or to build their life as they desired.
This was a man who had, simply for the sake of securing his golden years uninterrupted, tracked her down like an animal and tortured her. Her son and brother were dead for nothing but a part of the sport and a lottery audience. She had never, ever been a threat to him; he had known that.
He had been fully aware that he had trained common street criminals, who had no moral foundation at all, to use deadly things like directed draft drugs to drug or kill people in a manner that may not be detected.
Even the Sheriff was not safe with that tool. They could just as easily drug his home and gain any information he had access to. Innocent and unsuspecting people were being implanted and drugged to use for someone's sick and perverted live streaming lottery.
Guileless people could be robbed or killed; having committed no other crime than going to sleep. He bragged about his relationship with the FBI and was certain he could never be caught. How had she missed it all; and what could she have done to alter that course? Who can say where the road turned?
Years had been spent with a boyfriend who had been involved with her sister from a few short months of their meeting. His primary goal, from early on, had been killing her and taking the spoils.
She had endured poisoning, had survived his paid hits and extreme abuse including his routinely spitting all over her. Not once had she turned on him. Yet, he had gleefully joined her sister and Peter in the most hideous game imaginable. They were happy to participate in destroying her and her family.
She had been involved with yet another man who had used had stolen thousands of dollars from her company and used her to cover his criminal financial crimes, finally attempting a complete financial destruction, a trade for his greed and vanity.
The long, long marriage had been another experience at control and manipulation finally ending in violence. When the last page had been written, only she was surprised. She still thought she had a good marriage. She had given everything and been surprised when she got nothing at all.
She saw the same patterns in her son's life, particularly in Mickey's. He had been transported from her home in a drug induced coma and only an injection that had, by the grace of God worked, had pulled him out of a fatal drug overdose. Why had they been so willing to believe his wife, on two occasions, when she told them that the doctor had prescribed a fatal overdose?
Why had she been willing to allow her sister to move into her home after the bad experiences she had already endured with her?
Why had her two older sisters been willing to be a part of this heinous activity? Why had they joined Katrina in the game, one to simply look away while the other rivaled Katrina in the evil acts?
She had to look closely at her own part in this. Her refusal to believe what she was looking at had contributed to her becoming a victim in the worst possible way.
Her inaction in not calling the police as her home had been broken into and occupied and finally when she had been shoved across the room receiving serious injuries that required surgery, had allowed her to deny the truth about a man who may later have played a part in her son's death.
She could have and should have taken action against her sister years before; she had refrained at her mother's insistence. She had been conditioned from the time she was a small child, to accept the role her mother had enforced. At all times, her role in the family was the scapegoat. No wonder Katrina had thought it was fine. She had been doing it to her since her birth and had never been forced to examine her behavior or to pay any consequence for it.
The list of why's could go on and on. She remembered a visit with a therapist years ago. He had asked her why she continued to expect behavior from people who had clearly told her they were not going to exhibit what she expected.
She had replied that her mother had taught her that there was good in everyone and if she looked long enough and hard enough, she would find it."
The look of shock on his face spoke volumes. "There may very well be good in everyone; you can save your time looking for it. What they are willing to give you is exactly what you have been getting. Their good may be reserved for someone else. If you don't accept this you are in for a lot of pain."
Thirty five years later she decided he was right.
She realized that her mother had been trained by her father, controlled by his alcoholism and the need to overcompensate and be perfect to cover it up. They had been taught not to call the police, to be strong, to be a survivor and a host of other sick behavior patterns that had controlled their lives.
She had fooled herself, believing she had not been affected. The proof was in the results.
She remembered the passage in Og Mandino's book, 'The God Memorandum,' Where is the grace of your manner, the beauty of your figure, the quickness of your movement, the clarity of your mind, the brilliance of your tongue? Who stole your goods? Is the thief's identity known to you, as it is to me?"
"Once you placed your head in a pillow of grass in your father's field and looked up at a cathedral of clouds and knew that all the gold of Babylon would be yours in time."
"Once you read from many books and wrote on many tablets, convinced beyond any doubt that all the Wisdom of Solomon would be equaled and surpassed by you."
"And the seasons would flow into years until lo; you would reign supreme in your own Garden of Eden."
"Dost thou remember who implanted those plans and dreams and seeds of hope within you?"
She knew who had planted them; and now she knew the thief that had stolen them. Her best friends had ganged up for years; denial, look for the good and don't judge others had overtaken her garden of dreams.
Sometimes you have to judge others, or at least their behavior. It's OK not to look away or forgive behavior that you know is toxic and unforgivable.
And, denial is a sometimey friend. When the facts hit the wall he morphs into 'not me.'
She had to accept that sometimes really bad things happen to good people, and even that sometimes the actions of someone you love are so extreme they are not forgivable, and she didn't have to forgive. And, that you can love someone and hate what they do. When this happens you must draw a line that creates a safety barrier for your own well being.
She did not have to cover for anyone's bad behavior; she was not responsible for it.
And unless she did do something, they would not be held accountable for it; leaving other unassuming people open to become a victim without warning. Neither did she have to endure being bullied, tortured and tormented silently.
But she had been.
Perhaps the greatest lesson had been the knowledge that the mind does not control the person; it is likely the most powerful 'power tool' in the tool box of life, but people are ultimately controlled by their soul. It is there that the hopes and dreams and foundation of faith grow and blossom and reside.
To have mastered one's mind simply means we have gained control and the ability to use the most powerful tool in our game of life, or; we have allowed someone else to be the master craftsman. It is at all times our choice what we accept as truth and who we allow to assume control.
Lauren's actions and reactions stem from believing in people who had not earned that kind of trust. She could not even place all the blame on them; she had simply refused to believe in what they had shown her they had become.
And so, today, this day, she was writing a new script for her own life.
Slowly, she took the blinders off, and then carefully removed the rose colored glasses. She blinked her eyes rapidly; the light was blinding!
She had started with a dream and lived a nightmare; she was creating a new one! It would happen the moment she agreed to dream a new dream!
She heard a sight rustling and the whispered words, ever so gently blowing in the wind, "Remember you are simply moving to a lower vibration on the physical plane. This is your experience; remember to dream the good dream. We are only separated if you believe it to be so. Call on us and we will be there to counsel and guide you."
And so it came to pass... that the dream was showing severe signs of wear and tear as it drifted about her mind, tattered and torn from years of holding on.
The weary hand finally released the last vestige of the tenuous hold that had once been so mighty.
Like a feather it drifted into the wind and then, caught by a sudden breeze, it lifted, disappearing into the distant horizon.
Expecting the gut wrenching pain she had endured with every failure, she was stunned to feel the lightheartedness that engulfed her.
And then came the dawning realization that... Holding on had caused the pain!