It has been a minute since I wrote anything on this site. I’ve been having a hard time with some things and I just thought I would put it all out here. Maybe you can take something away from this, maybe my struggles will lessen yours. I hope so, at least. A little more than a year ago, I started therapy, talk therapy, which I really hadn’t done since I was very young and pretty clueless about myself, my surroundings, and my past. I did some trauma therapy during the pandemic and I really learned a lot about myself. I learned to acknowledge that I did have serious trauma and that if I didn’t learn to let things go, to forgive the situation, I was going to continue to not live my best life.

Let’s be clear here; “letting go” and forgiveness does not give an abuser a pass. It does not in any way, lessen your trauma, or make you “get over it”. What this type of forgiveness means, is that I release myself from any blame I placed upon myself, or others placed on me. I let go of the idea that the past can be any different than it was. It happened, that’s for sure, but I don’t have to carry it on my shoulders, I don’t need to wear it like a badge.

THe Next Step

When I finished the trauma therapy, I really felt like I needed to revisit “talk therapy” as an adult. I was very fortunate to find an amazing therapist and I’m so grateful to her. Speaking my story, out loud, to someone who didn’t know me and wouldn’t have attachment to blaming anyone, or protecting anyone in my story, felt like something that I needed to do.

A year into this, I have learned so much. About myself, about the people who should have been in charge of my well being. I’ve learned that the things I was most ashamed of, could never have happened if I hadn’t been placed into situations that I was not ready for and never should have been exposed to. I learned that I lived a great deal of my life in survival mode, and it’s hard to unlearn that behavior, that trauma response. I’ve recently been diagnosed with ADD, PTSD, and now we’re looking at mood disorders. Whew! It’s a lot right? As of now, I’m not prescribed anything for these things, but I’m more than open to them. I was very afraid of losing the creativity vein, but if that does happen, I can always adjust dosage, try different things, etc.

I’ve become very enamored with the idea of feeling stable, calm, happy, safe. It’s an ongoing, unfolding situation, but I’m feeling pretty hopeful.