Trauma

For the last few weeks I havent allowed myself the time or gathered the courage to sit down and get real with myself.

Questions come up and I lose myself in them….

Who made you feel like you werent enough? And why do you hang onto shit like that? Human beings, decent human beings should never, even in angry moments make another feel like they aren’t enough. Treatment that I have experienced surfaces in this moment. I am transported to some long ago memory, an unpleasant place in time. Fortunately it can be left where it is. In the dust and remenets of some other time.

Who made you feel like you werent smart enough? I have known people who speak to others like they have no knowledge or education. I like poeple like this as odd as that sounds, the phrase “if you give them enough rope, they will hang themselves” comes to mind. I am an observer by nature and to witness someone who thinks they know it all not really know anything at all is sometimes oddly satisfying.

Who made you feel like you were an option? Someone who you arent an option to any more?

When was it ever okay for someone to put their hands on you? I remember the first time….one of them anyway. This came a few times in life. As a young adult it was a shock. It caught me off guard, but throughout life it seems I was used to unpleasant events and so it, in some ways, seemed normal. (“Normal”, a woman I greatly admire cant stand that word…) so it became acceptable. I accepted things that were not okay.

Trauma changes us…

A normal day and a loud sound, or voice behind me when I am lost in thought and the PTSD kicks in. Sometimes it stays for days and sometimes it passes quickly. Sometimes its words. Sometimes is just sadness that sets in. An emotion finds its way to the surface where it hurts. An unhealed layer of some long ago place. Feelings of not being enough. Not smart enough, not pretty enough, not good enough. I sift through them and I shove back the tears until I am alone, I quiet the sadness in the dark, and push aside the anger, because it doesn’t serve me…..because the truth is I am still healing. I find solace in words most often, and safety in the warmth of his arms, close to his heart.

There is no getting over the angry words, or heavy hands, or sheer fear inflicted by another human being. There is no getting over feeling irrelevant, second best or second choice. There is no getting over abuse, physical, mental…abuse is abuse.

There is no getting over it, only getting through it and learning to how to care for that part of ourselves that is still healing from trauma that most aren’t aware of.

So most days I wear my new life….with a quiet strength and some tenderness, knowing that I am getting through it and healing it the best way I know how.