Trauma Recovery

It’s been a while since I’ve written a post that wasn’t a poem. It seems like now, some days, my thoughts just flow in a series of paced-to-a-beat words. I think about how at some point throughout the years of schooling, I was taught grouping will help memorization. I don’t expect anyone to memorize what I’m saying but maybe if it’s grouped, maybe to a beat, maybe the words will stick – mean something to someone that’s not just me. Today, my thoughts don’t come steady-paced. Frustration has them jumbled. all over the place. Today I’m going to talk about recovering from trauma, especially when you have to continue living in exposure to the same environments, people, or triggers that you experienced when actively going through it.

We don’t get better by bottling things up and shoving them down. We don’t get better by only looking for the good parts of ourselves. No one heals by seeking out pleasure as the only thing they feel. No one becomes whole by looking on the outside for someone else to fill those holes. We need to speak up, need to share our stories, even the details that are dark, scary, and gory. We need to sit with the pain, acknowledge what we’ve done, what we’ve allowed to happen, and who we’ve become.

I was 18 when I found myself in a relationship with a boy that was 26. A relationship where I got pressured to continue having unprotected sex after my birth control was put on backorder and I expressed concerns, on more than one occasion, about not being ready to have a baby yet and wanting to either abstain from sex or use condoms. I was told to take it as a sign, that the way I was acting showed I didn’t love or trust him, to just go along with it because I probably wouldn’t get pregnant anyways. After all of my pushback and concern was turned against me, I finally caved and let sex, unprotected, happen anyways.

If someone did this to you, or anything close, they probably wouldn’t want anyone to know. It’s not a very flattering look on anyone. Most people don’t like to acknowledge how their actions were experienced by others. What they also might not want anyone to know is that it had nothing to do with you. Months later, already trapped by pregnancy, in a moment of insecurity, I went through his emails, hoping to find reassurance that nothing was there. There was nothing current. I almost wish there were. I wished I had found him cheating on me instead of finding emails from shortly before me when he tried pressuring another girl to do the same, using all of the same lines. When I finally got over the pain, I was so proud for her that her willpower was stronger than mine.

I get it. If I did that to someone I wouldn’t want to admit it either so I understand. Hell, I just let someone do it to me and I still wouldn’t own that that’s how it happened for years. I lied to myself, my family, my friends. I didn’t want anyone to see that I let someone treat me like that and I didn’t want to change anyone’s views of them. It created wedges between the relationships in my life, including with myself. That’s the real impact of even seemingly meaningless lies. It’s the real reason I’m done lying to cover for people as I bury myself. So when I’m told that the personality that comes through in my writing is not the same one I had when I was known, 9 years ago, it’s because I grew out of bad habits like that.

I started telling the truth about what happened. First to my closest friends. Then I broached the topic with my therapist and admitted how ashamed I was that I was the kind of person that could be manipulated like that. Eventually, it became natural to just accept that it was part of the story I lived through but it doesn’t have to be who I am anymore. The more I talked about the experience and how it affected me, the views it led me to hold about myself, the more I realized that breaking my silence helped me outgrow the version of myself that allowed someone else’s voice to overpower mine each time I tried to say no.

The more I spoke and realized that I can be loved, even owning my ‘broken’ parts, the more I realized the power in accepting your story as it is and not trying to filter out the parts that look the ugliest in the light. I started owning more and sharing more. During the two times I found myself, inpatient, working on my mental health, the more I shared, the more other people seemed to be helped. What we sometimes don’t realize is that healing can be a group act. Sharing our stories, owning our truths, helps other people that are afraid to do the same finally take the first steps.

Here’s the truth, at least from my experiences. I got scolded for cooking because the stove used too much electricity. I got berated for walking, on the sidewalk, up the street to the store to get things that the baby needs – but I also got yelled at the day I sent a text asking him to bring diapers home on the way from work because how dare I not have more consideration for how tired he would be after a long day. When I didn’t want to have sex with him, he would pull his pants down and shove his dick in my face until I would eventually cave just because I wanted him to leave me alone and get the fuck away. When my mom posted a picture of me on facebook, he told me she needed to take it down because his coworkers would see it and he’d be embarrassed. Additional things that would make him embarrassed, being with me, were if any of his friends had met me or if I wore a strapless dress in public on a very hot, very pregnant day, in an attempt to feel more comfortable because what if he ran into one of his ex-girlfriends and THIS is what they saw him with. I was always either too fat or losing too much weight. I was accused of cheating anytime my coworker talked to me. He told me that he wished his mom didn’t even ask me to come to his grandma’s funeral because I was having a hard time getting the carseat into the back of his two-door car, after scrambling to get both myself and the baby ready without a moment of help because the baby just isn’t fun for him yet – so he’ll help then. I was told that my feelings and thoughts weren’t my own and didn’t matter because I was only saying them because it’s what my mom felt. He used his paternity leave from work to stay home and watch March Madness while I was in the hospital, having a fucking hell of a time, because soon me AND the baby would be home and then he wouldn’t get a chance to enjoy time to himself. He would ask me to take the baby and go stay at my parent’s house because he needed nights alone sometimes but wouldn’t hold the baby so I could take a shower alone. When I tried to move out the first time, he told me I was ruining my sons family, tearing it apart. How could I? There were promises of changed behavior and for the first week, maybe even three if I’m being immensely fucking generous, there was changed behavior until I got my security deposit and first months rent back from the apartment I had secured for myself prior to approaching the conversation. This list isn’t even close to all-inclusive and doesn’t even include a lick of what happened in the seven and a half years since I found the courage to leave, knowing I’d still have to face him regularly.

Sometimes, now, pregnant again, my mind slips back into the mentality that I developed to be able to survive him. I keep waiting for my partner to snap when I ask him for a simple favor but he never does, only reassuring me that he has more patience and love for me than that. That’s the thing about trauma and recovering – sometimes you’re going to find yourself in situations and living experiences that in some ways will mirror those in which the traumatic events occurred. Sometimes you might have flashbacks and forget where you are and that the people around you this time are safe. I’m not saying that the person that put me through that is still the same way – but I’m saying that even now, he tells me not to tell the truth about how I felt and what I experienced in those days.

I still have to talk about it. I still have to address the feelings. I never want my resentment to leak out onto my baby. Nowadays, I talk to fewer people so I write my feelings out. I used to write in a diary or a journal but after my inpatient experiences, I want other people to see what addressing your feelings and experiences is all about. It’s not always pretty, pleasant, and positive. It’s often laced with pain, you have to dig through anger before you get to real feeling. I’m aware that someday, my son could see these things. I hope he never does. I hope these behaviors and mentalities have been outgrown and never affect him. I hope if he reads any of the words, they’re so unrecognizable that it doesn’t phase him. But it’s not my job to change someone else’s patterns, and it’s not my responsibility to hide the truth.

As a mother, it’s my job to teach my children how to face the world, accept the truth, and take responsibility for their actions. Unfortunately, it’s my job to explain to them that just because they are willing to handle things in an honest way doesn’t mean that everyone is. Some people will try to control them, and manipulate them but they don’t need to harden as a result, they never need to stoop to those levels. I think it’s important as a parent to not set an example of hiding, to not recoil when faced with the resistance of your oppressors. I never want my children to become inconsiderate of how people feel when they talk but I also want them to understand that other people’s feelings in reaction to the truth and to their experiences are not ours to take on. We are all responsible for our own feelings and actions. The thing is, children learn by example not words and so that’s why I continue to push forward, to face my trauma, to acknowledge my truth – no matter how difficult it becomes to do when the pushback and control are present-day obstacles too.

If you’re hurting, I hope you find the courage to heal. If you’ve been silenced, I wish you the power of your voice back. If you’re ashamed, I want to encourage you that we’re all flawed – some just put more effort into hiding it, creating a facade. Things can change, life can get better, but you have to find it in yourself to face the nature of things rather than sugar coat as an attempt to make it an easier pill to swallow.
Much love, until next time.