A letter to myself.
There are so many parts and pieces to healing from trauma that people just don’t know.
Healing from trauma, especially serial trauma, is an incredibly hard journey. This is something we know, something a lot of us live with daily. But what people don’t tell you is that when you are finally working through it, when you’re pealing away the bandaids after the bleeding stops and the scabs have formed, you’re still in an extremely vulnerable state. Sometimes it’s incredibly hard to not peel back those scabs and crawl back into the safety of the “bandaid,” being attached to your body but still somehow separate.
I’m not sure if there’s a true term for that disconnection when you’ve dealt with various forms of abuse throughout your life, but I’m sure it’s something along the lines of ‘incomplete disassociation.’ All I know is that when you begin to float back into your body after a long period of feeling out of it, it feels like a new skin.
However, when you do begin to shake off the shackles of oppressive thoughts and start living for yourself and gaining confidence and are finally ready to start trusting people and molting that old, scarred husk that was a prison of insecurity and fear, there are going to be those you thought cared about you and your well being that are going to do things that make you want to shove yourself back into it because they don’t seem to like what they see, and that’s the new you trying to break itself out like a butterfly. They are going to do things that make you want to sink back into that box that made you so very palatable for them.
You’re got to express new thoughts, new ideas. Tell stories and tales with a confidence that makes them wary because it wasn’t there before, and society doesn’t like a person who has always struggled to find their voice that can suddenly sing a beautiful, loud, and deeply freeing song. It’s startling, and sometimes they’re going to reject the true you, whether consciously or not, and it’s going to hurt. A lot.
It’s going to cause you to rethink relationships with people you really care for because that fresh new body you’ve just spent all that time creating and cleaning and preparing for your fragile new confidence is a vulnerability to you because you’re not fully locked in yet. That trust you’ve work so hard to start giving again will feel like porcelain, cracking under the pressure simply because someone you thought SAW you, someone you trusted and turned to during your journey, has no use for someone who is finding themselves and new ways to express their inner self. It’s going to throw you right back into those oppressive thought bubbles, causing you to be riddled with anxiety, and make you question if you are ever going to be worthy of love.
When you want people to have your back the most, they’re going to disappoint you in ways that hurt deeply and make you feel like you are completely outside again. In the dark. Alone. The blanket of depression will try to creep over you again as it has so many times before. Be patient.
It’s going to be hard to hold onto that light you have kindled in your freshly-washed spirit. They may not even know how much these little cuts hurt you, but they do. They pierce like needles into the hands you’ve scrubbed clean until they were baby soft again. They may not even mean to, but you feel it. And because you’ve spent time deconstructing your shell and your negative thoughts and are still working on finding ways to not blame yourself for how people react to you, you’re going to be able to see your trauma responses more clearly while they’re happening. The windows will be mostly clean because you’re had to do the work in order to find yourself, and it’s going to make you so irrationally angry because you have given them the very trust you have worked so hard grow again, the trust you sculpted like carefully blown glass, kept far from your body until it hardened enough to touch it and give it to someone like the gift it is. You have let them have a front row seat into this new confident you and you are COUNTING ON THEM to help you find your feet again, entrusting them with this gift that has taken you so long to form and handle and wrap…
I don’t want you to stop feeding that fire inside of you just because they let you down, just because they looked at that gift like it was just a trinket to put on a shelf and allow to gather dust. We should be used to people letting us down at this point, shouldn’t we?
Alas, don’t allow yourself to be disheartened. You’re going to have other people who have felt the same pain as you on their own healing journey who will support you and show you they love you no matter what your new brain communicates to the world through your newly budded, fragile lips. They will see that little bubble of trust that you have tried so hard to create, and they will cherish it because they know. They will encapsulate it in iron and place it on their belt because that is a token that deserves to be displayed. And the key is to cling to that feeling of support and to not let yourself down. Let go of those feelings of bitterness and anger that you may have towards those who ultimately just aren’t ready to be inspired by your strength and start their own journeys, and treat your trust and love like the gift it is. Rise above, babe.
In the end, we’re all on a healing journey, and someday you may be able to help them find their legs in a way they couldn’t help you find yours. But you’ll know what to do when that day comes and you’ll clip their hopes to your belt, too. Because you’re amazing and a true wonder to behold. Never forget that. Forge on.
Always Lost in Words 