When you come to the edge of all the light you have...

I believe I can fly...!
Originally uploaded by rAmmoRRison

When you come to the edge of all the light

that you have

And must take a step into the darkness

of the unknown,

Believe that one of two things will happen to you:

Either there will be something to stand on, or,

You will be taught how to fly.

-Patrick Overton



For me, this is what healing from the effects of childhood abuses and neglect look like - I believed.

For many years I accepted the opinions of the "experts" - that I was broken, damaged beyond repair. That my best prognosis was to live the rest of my life on potent psychiatric medications that dulled my mind, intellegence and stole my soul.

But then I had the good fortune to stumble across a doctor who believed that I was more than a diagnosis; I was a person traumatized and injured from a lifetime of abuse. He validated my existence.

For the first time since entering the social welfare system and the mental health system in 1993 a spark of hope and life began to flicker within my being again.

I found the strength, faith and hope to believe that I was more than a case number, more than a diagnosis.

With the help of a therapist trained in the Trauma Model developed by Dr. Colin Ross I was finally able to face my past and begin to let go of the pain. I began to heal.

In making the decision to forgo the labels and diagnosis and the mind numbing medications I was making a decision to learn how to live.

The hitch was that it was going to be a painful journey as I began to face the feelings and deep emotional pain that had been denied for so many, many years.

These moments of pain were the "hard work"; the times when I "stood at the edge of all I had known" and believed that "something would be there for me to stand on" or that I "would learn how to fly".

See my version of this poem by Patrick Overton here  I Believed

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