I had become heavily involved with the rave scene at that time, attracted to a culture where dancing and drugs are used to escape reality. My partying began taking over much of my life when I wasn't working, and it was beginning to show it's affects on my personal life. My friends and family were very concerned over how different and lost I seemed. They felt helpless as their attempts to get through to me failed. I was oblivious to their worry at the time, and chose not to notice that they had begun to withdraw from me. They found it too painful to see what I was doing to myself.
After being involved with the rave scene for over a year, I finally became aware that I was not happy with my life and the way it was going. The partying and the drugs only created the temporary illusion that I had no problems and that life was fine. I knew it was time to take some more positive action towards my healing or I feared I would lose my way and end up choosing the illusion over reality. I made the decision then to start seeing a therapist. I found someone recommended to me by a friend, who specialized in childhood trauma and abuse therapy. I felt I needed help, professional support, to guide me in my healing journey, and to keep me from losing sight of my aspirations to heal. It was a very wise choice.
After being involved with the rave scene for over a year, I finally became aware that I was not happy with my life and the way it was going. The partying and the drugs only created the temporary illusion that I had no problems and that life was fine. I knew it was time to take some more positive action towards my healing or I feared I would lose my way and end up choosing the illusion over reality. I made the decision then to start seeing a therapist. I found someone recommended to me by a friend, who specialized in childhood trauma and abuse therapy. I felt I needed help, professional support, to guide me in my healing journey, and to keep me from losing sight of my aspirations to heal. It was a very wise choice.
Chris, my therapist, was amazing. In my sessions with her I started learning to recognize the thought and behaviour patterns I needed to work on and where those patterns originated from. She began teaching me different coping skills to help me manage my daily life so that I did not feel so overwhelmed by the new thoughts and feelings that were so close to the surface now. At the time, I began keeping journals to help me work through the issues I was working on, and as a way to look back on the progress I had made in my healing journey. From that time on my journal writing became a significant and necessary tool for me and my healing progress, not only in therapy, but in life as well.
It didn't take Chris long to diagnose me with clinical depression due to post traumatic stress disorder, and to put me on medication. Repressing my feelings attached to the abuse for so long, and choosing now to heal that pain, could feel very overwhelming at times. My drug use (the extent of which my therapist did not know in great detail except for pot and the occasional use of ecstasy) was also seriously affecting my chemical balances, but it was my only reprieve from the anxiety and fear I felt every other moment of my life, and I was blind to it's negative effects. Often, my ability to cope seemed to be getting worse the more I worked on my healing.
Journal entry, June 28, 2000: Today my therapist diagnosed me with clinical depression due to PTSD. Wow! That's a big one! She wants to put me on medication. I have the prescription, but I think it will take me a few days to think about this. I feel relieved and kind of scared all at the same time. I told her I had been thinking about depression lately and whether or not that was my problem, but I always think of other people's problems as so much worse than mine, and I downplay my feelings thinking it can't be that bad. But, it's time to face the facts. I'm not motivated or inspired in my life at all. I thought maybe pot had something to do with this, but now I realize my pot habit is a symptom of the cause, and not the cause itself. Unfortunately, it now perpetuates the cause, that being depression, making it harder to find my way out of it. When I think about the anxiety I have in my life, it has to do with me and how I handle responsibility. I seem to have no ability to take care of day to day functions. I don't clean my room, I don't take care of myself physically, I sometimes neglect my dog and cats, I am reckless with money and aways in debt, and I can't even return phone calls from family and friends. All of these things are things that I worry about, have dread about, constantly! I don't understand why I can't seem to do anything about it! I know I should, but something always holds me back. I never do the things I love anymore: playing and singing music, painting, drawing, jewellery making, photography. These are all things from my past. all the motivation and inspiration I should feel to do these things is missing. This, I suppose, is what depression is about. Now, at least I see there is a reason why I am the way that I am. I had been trying to understand these aspects of me for so long, and feeling worse about them everyday. Now I see it is normal and understandable because I am depressed. Unfortunately, it seems the best way to begin to combat this condition is with medication, and I hate that idea!
Although I was extremely hesitant about it, I eventually chose to take the antidepressants. In a short time I could notice a difference. The medication helped alleviate some of my anxiety, to make me feel more balanced so that normal daily tasks and responsibilities didn't seem so daunting to me. Also, in therapy I was more able to analyze some of my problems without feeling as overwhelmed as I had before, and I really started to learn some things about myself. I finally felt like I was getting somewhere.
However, even with the meds and therapy, I felt a lot of frustration at times while working on my healing. Some days were much worse than others, and on those days I seriously wondered why I had chosen to open this closet full of skeletons. Learning to use my journal writing as a tool to express myself and the way I was feeling was difficult when I was feeling frustrated about my healing, but I pushed myself, knowing it would help keep me on track.
Journal entry, September 25, 2000: WHY IS IT THAT WHEN THE PEN AND PAPER ARE IN FRONT OF ME, MY MIND GOES BLANK, YET ANY OTHER TIME MY MIND CAN'T STOP RACING?!?! WHAT IS IT THAT KEEPS ME FROM BEING ABLE TO EXPRESS THESE THINGS ON PAPER?? I NEED TO! I WANT TO! I HAVE TO! Okay, start simple. How do I feel right now? I feel lost, confused, like I'm drowning, like I need to run away. I feel like kicking some people in the head, and I feel lucky that I have other people in my life who support me and help keep me on track. I feel helpless, hopeless, yet hopeful at the same time, because I know all of these feelings are there because I'm healing, I'm moving somewhere, I'm working on it. All of this is better than living like before, it's just hard to see that when I'm in this state of mind. I feel relief and a little lighter today because going through this, no matter how painful it is, is what I need to do to undo the damage done. Every tear lets out a little more pain that I've been holding in for so long. It feels like an endless journey, and sometimes I wonder if it's worth it for all the hell I've been through since I started this. Sometimes it seems life was so much simpler when I had on my mask of the perfect, helpful, loving, well-adjusted Kristina. I didn't have to answer to everyone as to what was wrong with me. I had convinced everyone, including myself, that there WAS nothing wrong! Now, I'm just all fucked up and no one can really understand what happened to their happy little girl Kristina. I used to be so cheery and everyone could count on me when there was a problem to be solved. I always saw the positive side to everything and everyone. I guess what I'm saying is that I have a fear that because I am not really that person, how can I assure that these people will still love me. I'm no longer the person they thought I was. I'm no longer the person I thought I was. I feel so much hatred for myself right now. I know I need to learn to love myself, but in order to do this, I need to address these self hate issues. There are so many things that are a part of me, ingrained in my personality from the time I was very little, that are harmful to me now. Maybe at some time they helped me, but now they are parts of me that hurt me, and lead me to do things that are not healthy and healing. These are what I hate about myself! I hate that I can't control them, that they are a part of who I am, and I know of no other way, so I can't perceive of how to get beyond them. I can't see the goal that I am looking to reach because I have no knowledge or understanding of what that goal could be. I know I want to be happy, but how do I get there? What is it that I need to do to feel fulfilled? All I know is how I've dealt with life in the past. My experiences have shaped who I am, and now it's as if I have to start all over again to reshape all of these things about me.
After reading this last journal entry to Chris in therapy, she gave me a writing exercise that was designed to lift my spirits and to help me think more positively about my decision to heal. On a day that I was feeling good about myself and my progress, she had me write what she called a "Rainy Day Letter", a letter to myself that reminded me of why I chose to heal and inspired me to continue even through the hard times.
Journal entry, November 21, 2000: Rainy Day Letter
Dear Kristina,
So, you say today is a bad day. Remember that there cannot be good without bad, so although it may not seem so now, these bad times are always followed by good, and as your healing process continues, the bad will not seem so overwhelming, and the good will be more frequent and can be enjoyed to its full extent. Be proud of what you have accomplished in this obstacle you have chosen to overcome. Many would find the effort, the emotional turmoil too much to handle, and would instead choose to take the easy road by not dealing with it and pushing it away. You have been through severe emotional breakdowns, confusion about your feelings, major lifestyle changes and attempts to change, and yet you are still trudging through. Sometimes you fall back, but you have the courage to see where you want to go, and you push in the right direction again. You also have the confidence that even though you may falter sometimes, this does not mean you are a failure, or weak. It simply means you are human, and you learn from these experiences so as to do it better for next time. Take a good look at how far you've really come since this all began and you'll see what amazing things you have accomplished in your healing so far.
The most important thing to remember when you are feeling this way is the people who are in your life who are there for you no matter what, and who love you unconditionally. One of your best strengths is that you have developed a very large family as your support system. Even when they are not with you physically, they are always with you spiritually. You know their love and loyalty for you is true, and that is something you can always count on. These are the people that give you hope, faith, and love in life, and they are what give you the strength to get through this healing process you have embarked upon.
Whenever I felt like giving up, I would take out this letter and read it, and it usually put things into a better perspective for me.
Outside of therapy and my efforts to heal, I was still focusing much of my time on partying as a way to escape the weight of my past, a burden that seemed so close to the surface now that I was addressing these issues. When I was high and dancing and hanging out with my party friends, that weight lifted off of me, and for a time I could feel free. It was the only time I felt good about myself and my life, and the only time I really felt at peace. It was a distraction that I counted on, became addicted to. Not just to the drugs, but to the entire experience of it.
Within a few months after taking on my commitment to heal, a great teacher came into my life. Something I have learned is that you draw into your life people who are meant to teach you certain truths about yourself. These relationships are often fraught with conflict and pain, but if you are able to keep your eyes open, or at least pry them open eventually, you will be able to learn great things about yourself, and hopefully make changes in your life for the better. This person was one of those teachers for me.
I got romantically involved with someone from the rave scene who I had been friends with for over a year. He loved to party and made a living selling drugs among friends at parties. I knew that getting involved with him would be a roller coaster ride because of his personality, lifestyle, and career choice, but the more I stayed away, the more attracted to him I became. It didn't take long before we were a couple and had moved in together.
He and I had a lot of fun partying and hanging out with our friends, but my need to work on my healing had a tendency to be frustrating for him at times, and we had a hard time dealing with the issues it brought up between us. I was spending a lot of time analyzing my patterns and trying to learn how to change the negative ones and develop new positive ones. He, however, was extremely insensitive and ignorant towards how the past can affect the present, and he did not understand my need to bring these things up. He could be very emotionally abusive when I had stuff to work through. Many of my issues were triggered by problems that we had, and although it may have made our relationship very difficult at times, it was necessary for me to work through them and for him to learn that they were a fact in some people's lives. Whenever problems between us did trigger my own issues, I would write about it in my journal, working through the thoughts and feelings attached to the situation, and then I made a point to read those entries to him when I thought that he may be somewhat receptive to learning something about what I was going through.
In May of 2011, over a year after my first therapy session with Chris, I stopped going to see her. Although I didn't want to acknowledge it at the time, my reasons for leaving were that I had done all of the work with her that I was willing to do up to that point. I feared that the work I had left to do would entail admitting that I had a problem with drugs and partying, and that I was in an unhealthy relationship. I was simply not ready to face those facts yet. I also took myself off the antidepressants at this time.
I took a self therapy approach from that time on, too scared to face what I felt I would have to if I saw a doctor again. I thought that maybe if I took it one step at a time, using what I already learned in therapy, as well as the support of my family and friends, maybe I could eventually find my way out of this prison. Most importantly, I started to write more. Expressing myself through writing gave me an outlet. It allowed me to recognize and work through issues that I tended to avoid or ignore. Once they were on paper, it was like I couldn't put them aside anymore, they were there, staring me in the face, and I finally felt compelled to address them.
Journal entry, February 11, 2002: Ah, depression! Such a familiar and unwelcome state of mind! I've always been so good at covering up my symptoms of depression, even from myself. This has been a main coping mechanism for me. Hiding bad, negative feelings from other people in my life kept them from knowing how bad and crazy I felt inside. This protected me from their judgemental eyes and ensured I could keep people in my life who liked me, loved me. I created a Kristina I knew the world would love by basing my personality on a theme I knew was considered honest and good and worthy of love. In my mind, the person I was covering up inside was not worthy of love. Hiding the bad feelings from me protected me from my own judgement. I couldn't seem to handle seeing myself for who I really was inside, for who I thought I must be. So, I chose to only see the act I was putting on for the world, and to believe in it as everyone else did. All of my symptoms of depression I've come to realize, stem mostly from this repressed, ignored side of myself, what I now call my inner child. As I've grown, I guess she has grown too, and she seems to have gained enough strength to push some of these emotions she needs to release to the surface. It is my inability to face these feelings and therefore this little girl inside of me that is making me depressed. I'm pushing downward, and she's pushing up. I'm afraid that by giving her slack, I'm going to open the floodgates of hell and probably drown. I can't seem to get rid of this fear! It's like I'll have to live all the abuse, all the trauma over again somehow by setting her free. Then people will see her, me, the abused, traumatized, crazy person who can't even function properly. I don't want to be her! I don't want that pain! I don't want that childhood! It doesn't belong to me! It's someone else's! I can't learn to own the pain, therefore I can't own the child. Therefore, I can't fully own myself. Hence, my depression. This is what my depression is. This is where it comes from.
My relationship at the time became a form of therapy for me as well. His tendency to react in an emotionally abusive way when I was working through my issues made it really challenging for me to express the things I needed to express. He was raised in a family where there was no time for tears, emotion, or "weakness". His father would put his wife and children down in a very mean way whenever they brought this dynamic into the household. I believe it was this emotional abuse he witnessed growing up that was a major influence in his life, and especially how he dealt with me. His inability to understand trauma and it's after effects caused a lot of conflict between us. Learning to address the problems I had with him though, became an effective way for me to learn how to stand up for myself and to communicate my feelings, no matter how he reacted.
Journal entry, March 26, 2002: YOU could have just as easily beat me to a bloody pulp, and that probably would not have been as hurtful as what you just did! You sometimes make it seem like you're the one with the issues, and I'm the one fucking you up! Have we switched roles here?! I was the one abused and I'm the one trying to overcome it. All you have to do is deal with me. Granted, that's not an easy job, but it's a hell of a lot easier than what I am going through! You react to my problems with anger, frustration, and spite, like I'm deliberately trying to hurt you with the issues I am trying to work through. You show little sensitivity or understanding to the fact that I am fucked up, and I need support and compassion. Without these things, especially from you, I have no hope of getting better. When I tell you something you said affected me in a negative way, how dare you get angry with me, just because you did not intend to make me feel that way! It may not be your fault, but it is not mine either. I can't help feeling the way I feel when you say certain things in a certain way, but you can change the way you say them so that they don't hurt me anymore. For some reason you choose to make me feel worse by getting angry over how I took the conversation, instead of trying to understand why the conversation made me feel that way, and how we can change things so that I don't feel that way anymore. Why do you choose to blame me for my reactions to your mean words, when all I need is an ear to listen, an attempt to understand, and maybe to be held and told "I'm sorry", not even necessarily for what you've done, but for what's been done to me in the past to make me like this, to make me so sensitive to the world and the pain it inflicts? Do you have any idea the effect you have on my healing when you anger at my emotions, and mock my tears?! HOW DARE YOU!!! You have no right to hurt me anymore! I've been hurt enough already! I'm old enough and healed enough to know that I don't deserve that abuse, and I will not live with it! If you can't cope with me and the issues that I need to work through, and find ways to support and facilitate my healing, then please let me go! I deserve someone who wants to help me get better, who wants to see me overcome my problems, not force me further into them. Every time you show anger at my emotions, and especially when you mock me, you throw me right into that three year old girl inside of me, and I feel alone, hurt, and I want to crawl into a little hole and disappear! I had no control over what happened to me, but I'm trying to get control over the effects of what happened to me. You have control over how you treat me and speak to me. Can you take responsibility for that, or do you not have it in you? Right now, you are showing me all the signs that you can't handle this! Please prove me wrong!
The problems I was facing in my relationship had escalated to a point where it was seriously in danger. Between my emotional and sexual problems becoming so prevalent, and my boyfriend's tendency to react in an emotionally abusive manner when these things arose, we were now constantly in conflict with one another. His choice of career in drug dealing was taking it's toll on us as well. He had been arrested twice during the time that we were together, and although he had escaped being convicted because of police not respecting his rights according to the law, the worry and financial stress of retaining a lawyer and fighting those charges added a lot of tension to an already tense situation. I wondered if we had the strength and maturity to work through it all, or if our relationship was doomed.
It was at that point in my life that I made a very significant life decision. It was time to get out of the city, and away from the rave scene. Away from the drugs that kept my mind and spirit unbalanced so that it was impossible to be happy when I wasn't high. Away from the many people in my life who's needs kept overriding my own. Away from the life I had been living for too many years to run away from myself and my need to heal. It was finally time for me to get real about my life and my healing once and for all! When I told my boyfriend how I felt, he seemed very supportive and understanding, and agreed to do whatever it took to help things get better for me and for us. We planned to find a house to rent in the country where we could work on our relationship, and I could truly concentrate on my healing, away from the negative influences of our life in the city. I was finally ready to leave the lifestyle I had grown to love and hate all at the same time.
We found a beautiful big old farmhouse to rent about two hours outside of the city. Not only was it in a community where one of my best friends happened to be from and now lived, a community I was familiar with and knew several people, it was also closer to my family.
We moved in August of 2003. The old farmhouse and property were heaven to me, and I loved living there. However, my relationship did not improve with the move. I was looking to escape our old lifestyle and work on our relationship and my healing, and to look towards making a future together. I thought he wanted the same thing. We had both planned to get legitimate jobs and to make an honest living, but it soon became obvious that the lifestyle he had been living had too much control over him, and he was not able to get out of it. He claimed there was too much money to be made doing what he was doing, and he couldn't afford to stop. I felt cheated! My frustration over his inability to commit to our new life, and his frustration over not feeling able to deal with our problems, caused some very big conflict in our household. This was when I started realizing he was not willing or able to change his life and his abusive patterns, at least not for me.
By Christmas of that year, things had escalated to a point where I was getting prepared to end the relationship. Then I found out he had been cheating on me during his drug selling escapades in the city, and that made the decision final. I ended the relationship then. It was time to start developing a relationship with myself, instead of giving so much of myself to another, especially undeserving person.
And so began a journey into myself that I never thought would be possible! It was then that I decided to write my story (excerpts of which you have been reading here in my blogs) , a memoir of my life and healing. It was truly a monumental period in terms of my healing process, and it was one of the greatest breakthroughs I have ever made in my healing journey so far.
While the feelings and flashbacks I experienced when writing my story were intense, and involved a lot of tears and deep emotion, the fears I had of being overcome by them were unnecessary. The emotions I was feeling were relieving, thought provoking emotions, that could even feel exhilarating at times! Sometimes I found myself crying and laughing all at the same time, for how good it felt to get that stuff out! No words can ever describe what that truly felt like for me. I was finally coming to terms with what happened to the little girl inside of me, with what happened to ME! For the first time in my healing journey, I started to feel an integration occur between myself and that little girl that I had separated myself from so many years ago. I was finally beginning to see her for all that she was, all that she went through and felt, and in turn, I started to see myself in a whole new light. I started to see myself as whole!
While that integration was a turning point for me, just like the decision to heal did not amount to immediate relief, feeling integrated and whole did not amount to feeling like everything was now stable and secure in my world. Although it was a wonderful feeling of freedom and lightness and wholeness, this was not a way that I was used to feeling! I found myself not knowing what to do with my new sense of wholeness, and suddenly my life felt like it was floating in limbo. The problem was, I felt like I had no experience living like a whole complete person, and I did not believe in my ability to do so. How was I to be a successful person in my life and to know how to follow my dreams if I didn't even know what success felt like? I had only learned how to survive, not to thrive!
Journal entry, February 5, 2005: Why do I always think that I can't when I should believe that I can? There is a part of me that knows I can do anything I put my mind to, and that I would feel so fulfilled if I did. But, for some reason, knowing and believing are two different things. How do I learn to believe in myself and in my dreams, and to finally feel motivated to start living them?
Another few sessions with a new therapist, and she opened up my eyes to something I had not even considered. She taught me that I knew a lot about success and following my dreams, it was just not in the typical sense that people think of when they think of those terms. I had chosen a path of healing and committed myself to making that integration occur within myself, and even with all that I had gone through to get to this point, I still persevered! She helped me realize that I had been following my dreams all along, and that I had accomplished incredible success in my healing journey so far, and therefore in my life. She helped me see that just because I was not focussed on career and family, what most of society sees as success, it did not mean I was not creating success in my life. I knew very well about succeeding and following my dreams! I had been doing it this whole time!
While I still struggle with issues that stem from my past, and how my past has affected my patterns and ways of thinking and living, I have come a long, long way from that girl who was so lost many years ago, and I promise myself I will continue that journey as far as it takes me.
Healing from trauma and abuse is a never ending journey. Our past is something we cannot change and that will always, to some extent, be a part of who we are. Although I know I have done so much for myself so far, I also know I still have much to learn, and many more obstacles to overcome. This is my journey, and I believe, hope, that I will be learning and healing and growing until the day I die. In the experiences I have had so far in life, in healing, and in writing my story, I have learned that I no longer have to feel trapped by my past, lost in a victimized existence. I can break the cycle of abuse and trauma that I lived as a child, and I can learn to be happy and to love and respect myself. Today, I feel so much more in control of my life. I actually do have a say. Life isn't something that happens to me, it's something that happens for me. I know I have come a long way, and I know I can go so much further if I have made it this far! The worst is over, and the best is yet to come!
Peace and Love Everyone! K. <3
In May of 2011, over a year after my first therapy session with Chris, I stopped going to see her. Although I didn't want to acknowledge it at the time, my reasons for leaving were that I had done all of the work with her that I was willing to do up to that point. I feared that the work I had left to do would entail admitting that I had a problem with drugs and partying, and that I was in an unhealthy relationship. I was simply not ready to face those facts yet. I also took myself off the antidepressants at this time.
I took a self therapy approach from that time on, too scared to face what I felt I would have to if I saw a doctor again. I thought that maybe if I took it one step at a time, using what I already learned in therapy, as well as the support of my family and friends, maybe I could eventually find my way out of this prison. Most importantly, I started to write more. Expressing myself through writing gave me an outlet. It allowed me to recognize and work through issues that I tended to avoid or ignore. Once they were on paper, it was like I couldn't put them aside anymore, they were there, staring me in the face, and I finally felt compelled to address them.
Journal entry, February 11, 2002: Ah, depression! Such a familiar and unwelcome state of mind! I've always been so good at covering up my symptoms of depression, even from myself. This has been a main coping mechanism for me. Hiding bad, negative feelings from other people in my life kept them from knowing how bad and crazy I felt inside. This protected me from their judgemental eyes and ensured I could keep people in my life who liked me, loved me. I created a Kristina I knew the world would love by basing my personality on a theme I knew was considered honest and good and worthy of love. In my mind, the person I was covering up inside was not worthy of love. Hiding the bad feelings from me protected me from my own judgement. I couldn't seem to handle seeing myself for who I really was inside, for who I thought I must be. So, I chose to only see the act I was putting on for the world, and to believe in it as everyone else did. All of my symptoms of depression I've come to realize, stem mostly from this repressed, ignored side of myself, what I now call my inner child. As I've grown, I guess she has grown too, and she seems to have gained enough strength to push some of these emotions she needs to release to the surface. It is my inability to face these feelings and therefore this little girl inside of me that is making me depressed. I'm pushing downward, and she's pushing up. I'm afraid that by giving her slack, I'm going to open the floodgates of hell and probably drown. I can't seem to get rid of this fear! It's like I'll have to live all the abuse, all the trauma over again somehow by setting her free. Then people will see her, me, the abused, traumatized, crazy person who can't even function properly. I don't want to be her! I don't want that pain! I don't want that childhood! It doesn't belong to me! It's someone else's! I can't learn to own the pain, therefore I can't own the child. Therefore, I can't fully own myself. Hence, my depression. This is what my depression is. This is where it comes from.
My relationship at the time became a form of therapy for me as well. His tendency to react in an emotionally abusive way when I was working through my issues made it really challenging for me to express the things I needed to express. He was raised in a family where there was no time for tears, emotion, or "weakness". His father would put his wife and children down in a very mean way whenever they brought this dynamic into the household. I believe it was this emotional abuse he witnessed growing up that was a major influence in his life, and especially how he dealt with me. His inability to understand trauma and it's after effects caused a lot of conflict between us. Learning to address the problems I had with him though, became an effective way for me to learn how to stand up for myself and to communicate my feelings, no matter how he reacted.
Journal entry, March 26, 2002: YOU could have just as easily beat me to a bloody pulp, and that probably would not have been as hurtful as what you just did! You sometimes make it seem like you're the one with the issues, and I'm the one fucking you up! Have we switched roles here?! I was the one abused and I'm the one trying to overcome it. All you have to do is deal with me. Granted, that's not an easy job, but it's a hell of a lot easier than what I am going through! You react to my problems with anger, frustration, and spite, like I'm deliberately trying to hurt you with the issues I am trying to work through. You show little sensitivity or understanding to the fact that I am fucked up, and I need support and compassion. Without these things, especially from you, I have no hope of getting better. When I tell you something you said affected me in a negative way, how dare you get angry with me, just because you did not intend to make me feel that way! It may not be your fault, but it is not mine either. I can't help feeling the way I feel when you say certain things in a certain way, but you can change the way you say them so that they don't hurt me anymore. For some reason you choose to make me feel worse by getting angry over how I took the conversation, instead of trying to understand why the conversation made me feel that way, and how we can change things so that I don't feel that way anymore. Why do you choose to blame me for my reactions to your mean words, when all I need is an ear to listen, an attempt to understand, and maybe to be held and told "I'm sorry", not even necessarily for what you've done, but for what's been done to me in the past to make me like this, to make me so sensitive to the world and the pain it inflicts? Do you have any idea the effect you have on my healing when you anger at my emotions, and mock my tears?! HOW DARE YOU!!! You have no right to hurt me anymore! I've been hurt enough already! I'm old enough and healed enough to know that I don't deserve that abuse, and I will not live with it! If you can't cope with me and the issues that I need to work through, and find ways to support and facilitate my healing, then please let me go! I deserve someone who wants to help me get better, who wants to see me overcome my problems, not force me further into them. Every time you show anger at my emotions, and especially when you mock me, you throw me right into that three year old girl inside of me, and I feel alone, hurt, and I want to crawl into a little hole and disappear! I had no control over what happened to me, but I'm trying to get control over the effects of what happened to me. You have control over how you treat me and speak to me. Can you take responsibility for that, or do you not have it in you? Right now, you are showing me all the signs that you can't handle this! Please prove me wrong!
The problems I was facing in my relationship had escalated to a point where it was seriously in danger. Between my emotional and sexual problems becoming so prevalent, and my boyfriend's tendency to react in an emotionally abusive manner when these things arose, we were now constantly in conflict with one another. His choice of career in drug dealing was taking it's toll on us as well. He had been arrested twice during the time that we were together, and although he had escaped being convicted because of police not respecting his rights according to the law, the worry and financial stress of retaining a lawyer and fighting those charges added a lot of tension to an already tense situation. I wondered if we had the strength and maturity to work through it all, or if our relationship was doomed.
It was at that point in my life that I made a very significant life decision. It was time to get out of the city, and away from the rave scene. Away from the drugs that kept my mind and spirit unbalanced so that it was impossible to be happy when I wasn't high. Away from the many people in my life who's needs kept overriding my own. Away from the life I had been living for too many years to run away from myself and my need to heal. It was finally time for me to get real about my life and my healing once and for all! When I told my boyfriend how I felt, he seemed very supportive and understanding, and agreed to do whatever it took to help things get better for me and for us. We planned to find a house to rent in the country where we could work on our relationship, and I could truly concentrate on my healing, away from the negative influences of our life in the city. I was finally ready to leave the lifestyle I had grown to love and hate all at the same time.
We found a beautiful big old farmhouse to rent about two hours outside of the city. Not only was it in a community where one of my best friends happened to be from and now lived, a community I was familiar with and knew several people, it was also closer to my family.
We moved in August of 2003. The old farmhouse and property were heaven to me, and I loved living there. However, my relationship did not improve with the move. I was looking to escape our old lifestyle and work on our relationship and my healing, and to look towards making a future together. I thought he wanted the same thing. We had both planned to get legitimate jobs and to make an honest living, but it soon became obvious that the lifestyle he had been living had too much control over him, and he was not able to get out of it. He claimed there was too much money to be made doing what he was doing, and he couldn't afford to stop. I felt cheated! My frustration over his inability to commit to our new life, and his frustration over not feeling able to deal with our problems, caused some very big conflict in our household. This was when I started realizing he was not willing or able to change his life and his abusive patterns, at least not for me.
By Christmas of that year, things had escalated to a point where I was getting prepared to end the relationship. Then I found out he had been cheating on me during his drug selling escapades in the city, and that made the decision final. I ended the relationship then. It was time to start developing a relationship with myself, instead of giving so much of myself to another, especially undeserving person.
And so began a journey into myself that I never thought would be possible! It was then that I decided to write my story (excerpts of which you have been reading here in my blogs) , a memoir of my life and healing. It was truly a monumental period in terms of my healing process, and it was one of the greatest breakthroughs I have ever made in my healing journey so far.
While the feelings and flashbacks I experienced when writing my story were intense, and involved a lot of tears and deep emotion, the fears I had of being overcome by them were unnecessary. The emotions I was feeling were relieving, thought provoking emotions, that could even feel exhilarating at times! Sometimes I found myself crying and laughing all at the same time, for how good it felt to get that stuff out! No words can ever describe what that truly felt like for me. I was finally coming to terms with what happened to the little girl inside of me, with what happened to ME! For the first time in my healing journey, I started to feel an integration occur between myself and that little girl that I had separated myself from so many years ago. I was finally beginning to see her for all that she was, all that she went through and felt, and in turn, I started to see myself in a whole new light. I started to see myself as whole!
While that integration was a turning point for me, just like the decision to heal did not amount to immediate relief, feeling integrated and whole did not amount to feeling like everything was now stable and secure in my world. Although it was a wonderful feeling of freedom and lightness and wholeness, this was not a way that I was used to feeling! I found myself not knowing what to do with my new sense of wholeness, and suddenly my life felt like it was floating in limbo. The problem was, I felt like I had no experience living like a whole complete person, and I did not believe in my ability to do so. How was I to be a successful person in my life and to know how to follow my dreams if I didn't even know what success felt like? I had only learned how to survive, not to thrive!
Journal entry, February 5, 2005: Why do I always think that I can't when I should believe that I can? There is a part of me that knows I can do anything I put my mind to, and that I would feel so fulfilled if I did. But, for some reason, knowing and believing are two different things. How do I learn to believe in myself and in my dreams, and to finally feel motivated to start living them?
Another few sessions with a new therapist, and she opened up my eyes to something I had not even considered. She taught me that I knew a lot about success and following my dreams, it was just not in the typical sense that people think of when they think of those terms. I had chosen a path of healing and committed myself to making that integration occur within myself, and even with all that I had gone through to get to this point, I still persevered! She helped me realize that I had been following my dreams all along, and that I had accomplished incredible success in my healing journey so far, and therefore in my life. She helped me see that just because I was not focussed on career and family, what most of society sees as success, it did not mean I was not creating success in my life. I knew very well about succeeding and following my dreams! I had been doing it this whole time!
While I still struggle with issues that stem from my past, and how my past has affected my patterns and ways of thinking and living, I have come a long, long way from that girl who was so lost many years ago, and I promise myself I will continue that journey as far as it takes me.
Healing from trauma and abuse is a never ending journey. Our past is something we cannot change and that will always, to some extent, be a part of who we are. Although I know I have done so much for myself so far, I also know I still have much to learn, and many more obstacles to overcome. This is my journey, and I believe, hope, that I will be learning and healing and growing until the day I die. In the experiences I have had so far in life, in healing, and in writing my story, I have learned that I no longer have to feel trapped by my past, lost in a victimized existence. I can break the cycle of abuse and trauma that I lived as a child, and I can learn to be happy and to love and respect myself. Today, I feel so much more in control of my life. I actually do have a say. Life isn't something that happens to me, it's something that happens for me. I know I have come a long way, and I know I can go so much further if I have made it this far! The worst is over, and the best is yet to come!
Peace and Love Everyone! K. <3
