Breathing Under Water

Hi my name is Catherine, everyone calls me Cathy. I’m seven, I got two other sisters that are older than me, and a younger brother, he’s my best friend, his name is Brandon.

We just got a new house, we used to live in an apartment, but now we got a house. Mommy said that we still had to go back to the old apartment so that the lady there can babysit while her and Daddy work. I don’t like it there, so many bad things happen to me there. This boy, he does things to me that hurt and nobody helps me. I know it happens a lot but something has happened to me. I go somewhere in my head even though my body is there and somehow it is over until the next time.

I have to pee so bad, it hurts now when I pee and I get some blood on my panties, I don’t want to sit in the tub anymore either cause the water burns down there, as long as I hold my breath it all goes away. The things he does, going to the potty, and taking a bath, it all goes away when I hold my breath. Today my mom has to wash the clothes, she will be so mad at me cause I have been throwing my panties away, cause of the blood and stuff, they be wet somehow, she is going to be MAD….

I can’t believe it, she is all finished and she didn’t say anything, I, I don’t, (hold your breath, hold your breath, and it will all go away).

It’s a new week now, and back to that apartment, why don’t my sisters help me do they go first or last are we all holding our breath until it’s over?

OUCH, OUCH, o’ it hurts, my sister my big sister just came in the room and he jumped up and it hurt worse than ever, but my sister is here to help, or is it her time and she is just early. How am I seeing this and hearing this when I take my mind away, I don’t know? My sister is going to tell on me, it’s not my fault I’m only a little girl why is she going to tell on me. (Hold your breath) keep walking. Please, please don’t tell on me you are suppose to protect me. I thought you came to help me. God why has this happen to me? Why didn’t you protect me?

How many of you are Cathy? You have been walking around on dry land, yet living as though you are underwater. You must hold your tongue and your breath as though you are underwater; you do not understand why everything in your life has been as this seven-year-old child, holding your breath to get through the hurt and pains of life. Within your spirit is the desire to breathe freely, fresh clean air, to come out of the water, but everything and everyone seems to keep pulling you under. Is it easier to give up and drown? I don’t think so; if you felt that, you wouldn’t be reading this book. You are looking, hoping, and searching for something to bring you out. So am I. As the adult Cathy, I have been to every church meeting for healing and deliverance. I have been in counseling so many times with so many different therapists that I should and could have my Ph.D. in every subject matter known to man. I have done spiritual counseling as well as counseling with the layman, but somehow I couldn’t get out that water, because it has been safer to live underwater, speechless, and helpless, than to live in the real world where all you hear is GET OVER IT. How many of you have heard that? More often from people in the ministry. GET OVER IT. Have you noticed that no one ever tells you how to do just that, get over it? My advice from personal experience is not to get over it but to get above it and breathe.