My Thought For Today: Turing Pain into Promise

No matter how difficult life has been I look at the trials I’ve had as lessons. Not just the typical I won’t do that anymore, I know what to look out for now, I won’t let that happen to me anymore type of lessons, but the types of lessons I use as stepping stones, how I will achieve my goal of being the best version of me.

I don’t want to be defined by what’s happened to me, by my bad decisions or indecision, my medical problems, how I chose to react to situations and others, my prior patterns, the rage I had, or the promises I made that I couldn’t follow through with because I wasn’t aware of why I couldn’t keep them. I have too many good things happening in my life now to be weighed down by all that junk even if it doesn’t look like I do.

I walked away from almost everyone and everything I knew because I realized the safety net I thought I had was nonexistent and having safety is nonnegotiable now. It’s not that the people in my life were “bad” people, they more not. Everyone with a traumatic past carries scars and had to protect themselves, I understand and respect that. This happened to be what worked best for me. It’s a radical step, I’m not advocating that other people do what I did. I spent over a year discussing it with my therapist. It wasn’t a decision I took lightly and was by no means impulsive. Am I lonely? Yes. Am I scared? Yes, sometimes. Do I feel better? Most definitely.

I consider my journey with trauma therapy at the point of no return. The life I had before I started all this isn’t available to me anymore because not only have I grown out of it, it wasn’t mine to begin with, it was borrowed, strictly survival mode. I don’t live life like that any more. I’m not stagnant, I’m moving forward, my compass is pointed towards thriving mode. I’m using the lessons I’ve learned from my past and how C-PTSD has affected everything I’ve done and what I’m doing now to get to the finish line and put my trauma and trauma therapy behind me. I know it’s going to take a while and for every two steps forward I’ll have a step backwards and a few steps to the side. I expect that.

There are nights I go to sleep and lay in complete darkness and silence and just listen to my breath. I couldn’t that before I started trauma therapy, it’s an unexpected benefit. Until a few weeks ago, I had to have at least a nightlight on and some music or some sort of noise. For  the last fifty-five years I was afraid of the dark. I also couldn’t relax. For years I needed Xanax just to get my brain to quiet down enough so I could go to sleep. It’s been almost six months since I’ve been able to sleep without the aid of medication and now my overworked brain knows how to rest most nights. Another added benefit of making changes in my life and letting go of some of the things that were weighing so heavily on my mind.

I take care of my body now when before it ended up being an afterthought because I was consumed with the drama on my life. I had good intentions but my follow through was seriously lacking. I didn’t believe in myself then. Today, I’m gluten free, vegan, and I’ve made other dietary changes, all medically necessary, which are not only helping me feel better physically, but my emotional well-being has benefited as well. The body and the mind are connected. Take care of one, the other follows suit. I’ll never not try to feel better. I may have times when I feel like giving up but I refuse to throw in the towel. I’m not built like that.

I don’t expect other people to understand me 100% anymore because they will have had to walk in my shoes and I’ve got tiny feet, my shoes won’t fit most people. It doesn’t matter to me if how I live my life is what’s popular, it’s what works for me. I do my best like believe most people do. What I would like is to be defined by the fact that I will never not try, no matter how difficult it seems or how impossible life feels, if it looks like life is getting too dark or if my dramatic ass is having a moment and I’m whining. My trauma will always be there but it wont be in the forefront of every through, it won’t be the reason why I do the things I do and it doesn’t have to be what defines me. I’m not my trauma.