It’s been awhile since I last wrote. I don’t have much of a reason other than life has been rough and writing has taken a back seat. I think because when I write, everything always stays in the forefront of my mind, forcing me to process, and think, and feel … and I needed a break.
This journey through healing, learning to recognize and then cope with the wide range of symptoms associated with PTSD, has been harder than I could ever imagine. I wrote in a previous post, Reflections on 12 months in therapy, that most survivors who reach out for help and begin therapy really don’t know what they are getting into. I don’t think we survivors initially realize just how directly everything will affect our lives; our friendships, intimate relationships, work relationships, and interactions with our children, as we start wading through some of the most terrifying and intensely emotional moments of lives. If you are anything like me, as a child you turned it all off. I cant begin to tell you what it really, truly feels like, when you finally start to face up to and feel those emotions. It knocks me down often.
I have spent the last 18 months chasing the symptoms, learning to identify feelings and trying to reconnect to myself. It has been some of the hardest work I have ever done. It has also been the most time and individual attention I have ever given myself.
Until I began this journey I had no real idea what self-care was.
No clue of what it meant to cope, properly and in a healthy manner.
I had no real control of my emotional responses.
I definitely had no awareness of my every day emotional and psychological responses being tied to deep-seated feelings I had about myself due to the abusive childhood I lived.
And I hadn’t the slightest clue, truly, what it meant to live with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which in my case is delayed onset by over 20 years (adding it’s own degree of complexity as I reconciled how my mind shut out so much for so long).
My childhood and the subsequent mental illness I have lived with since, has taken some of the best parts of me away from my children, my husband, and from myself.
Restoring within me, what was shattered as a child, by monsters in real life, is challenging, painful at times, and quite the emotional and mental workout, but ….
It feels good to write again.
Hello and thank you to those who follow me and have been patient while I continue to put myself back together.
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Love & Support 💜💚
I’ve missed your voice; looking forward to reading about “30 Days Triggered.”