Living with Complex Trauma
It has been a long road to finally figuring out what happened to me & why I was acting/existing the way that I was. Getting a diagnosis of Complex Trauma from a competent therapist was the first step to being able to breathe & have some compassion for myself.
It took 36 years for me to land in her office after hitting bottom. I walked around with this buzzing anxiety & fear of something bad happening. I had an inability to trust anyone other than my closest friend & even that became strained after awhile. I couldn't get comfortable in my own skin. I felt like who I am had been fractured before I had a chance to figure anything out. I have learned to live from my normal...not what everyone else thinks my normal should be. I am a sensitive person. I am an empath. I am growing to understand who I am in the world.
I have days when things are great & days when things are bad. I speak of my internal world mostly, people often view me as the person who does not flinch on the outside. My inner world is quite different & I have had to do tremendous work to release other people's opinions about my struggles in life. I can have lots of reasons to be happy & I just can't be happy. People ask me what happened & nothing has happened in the moment. I'm usually caught in an emotional flashback that is incredibly difficult to get out of. I feel inadequate in so many ways during those times & I have to remember to nurture myself because it is the little girl inside me that is showing up during those times. She remembers the abandonment & dark nights when no one was there to comfort her & she feels that way in the moment. So I comfort her. I tell her I'm there with her in the dark & I light a very bright candle for her. We turn on the lights in the room together & look in all the scary places so that she can see that she is ok.
A lot of people think that you just get over stuff like this. If that is true I have not fully experienced it. I have experienced a greater sense of comfort & peace than I have ever known & I manage much better but these wounds are a part of me. I choose not to let them define me. I cannot forget what happened to me & constantly trying to led me down the road of addiction, secrecy, & I ended up abandoning myself in the desire to escape what I had experienced. You learn that there is hope for healing & that healing includes remembering & not being debilitated by those memories.
My life is complex due to what I have experienced. Nowadays I live from my truth & what I have experienced & I'm ok with my experience not looking like everyone else's. Everyone else didn't experience what I experienced & I feel that I am getting along quite well considering. You can be free to experience your life as YOU need to. Everyone else's expectations & little boxes they want to put you in are not relevant to your healing. What matters most is you living from a place of authentic expression of who you are, no matter how complex that may be. I hope that you find the courage to live your complex life out loud & be unabashedly who you are.
Join the Proving Ground Community here & let's start talking about how we can heal together & support each other.