Denise Thompson

I’ve spent most of my life trying to control my narrative. The blog Shae Chronicles was a cry for help. I was never good at allowing people to truly see me. I had created this idea of the real Denise being unacceptable and some what of an outcast. I wanted life to be easy and easy was being acceptable. Acceptable was being like everyone else and hiding from my pain and shaming myself from my past. Minimizing my potential to maintain face with my environment even though I knew their was something special about me since I was a little girl. I found it much easier to write it all down in a journal only to never be read again. Between me, myself and I, I was able to see my ugly truths, release them in my writing and find new ways to hide them within my words. I took no action to change or be better. I was telling myself the same story, with different characters, year after year. Not once did I stop to think I may actually need help. I had began to normalize this patter of behavior. I had normalized living in denial and hiding my truth from myself. I’d normalized people accepting me being the very reason for my existence rather than me choosing to exist as Denise. I was more for the people than I was for myself.

As my blog started to grow, I received much support. People saw my words and related to them. They felt the same pain I had and didn’t realize it had affected them so much until they read my blog. The response from my community lifted me. I felt as though I was moving in a different direction. I was finally unveiling myself to the world unashamed of where I had come from. Until one day, I found myself writing a blog post that sounded way too familiar and it scared me. How was it I’m finally being open about my struggles but had no change. Being open and honest allowed me to come out of hiding but it didn’t heal my wounds, it had only placed a bandaid on top. I even went as far to think could the hype of the blog had been enough for me not to change? Could the praise I received been enough to validate me so change was not even a thought? My pain was acceptable and that was all I needed to feel sufficient. This did not sit well with me. It’s one thing to progress on your own but now I had the world watching me and I felt responsible to be intentional with my community. I was no help to them or myself by only sharing these stories and not breaking the patterns of my past. I knew I would never heal completely but I could change my behavior to stop picking at the same scars. Sharing my stories took courage. Sharing my breakthrough would take vulnerability. Vulnerability would take trust and I didn’t know how to trust myself to fully release control. So, I did what I was taught to do when in survival mode and your back is up against the wall, I started praying.

My historic relationship with God didn’t go further than an occasional prayer. This time I knew I needed to develop our relationship in order to truly see myself through the eyes of my creator. If change is what I truly wanted, it had to start in my mind. I needed to find a way to reteach myself the fundamentals of love. The one true love I knew existed was the love God had for me. If there was one core value I had left in me, it was my faith. I also knew he would accept me with open arms as long as I received him. Within one day, I shut down my blog and decided to focus on my relationship with God. I knew that if God could love me unconditionally, he could teach me how to do the same for myself. For the next few months, I sought out God and truly began the healing phase.