As you may have seen from Sunday, I am using the book “All are Free to Write” by Sheila Allee to help me to feel inspired and to write. The first prompt was about intentions for the next year and giving permission to do things. I made a list of 5 different things I want to give myself permission to do this year. I know I am technically starting this book in the month of February, but I think I can still work towards utilizing it appropriately.
The fourth INTENTION on my list is:
Be able to speak about my past without fearing other people’s perceptions.
When other people look at you like “are you okay” when you share part of your story, it gets old quickly. I want to share it with people, so that others can see you can survive. This is especially true given where I am now, but people still judge and go “oh, I am so sorry you went through that.” Sometimes thinking I am telling them out of wanting sympathy or them to pity me, but I want them to know because there is a power in the truth being spoken into the air. There is power in speaking what has happened to you.
There are things that have happened in my life that are silenced, that should be able to be talked about. Abuses. When I take what is called the Adverse Childhood Experiences survey, I score ten out of ten. This means I have an increased likelihood of dying earlier than other people. Sounds great right? I refuse to let it be this negative thing. There was physical abuse around me when I was growing up. I was sexually abused and have trauma from that time. I have resorted to sex work to survive. I have also been homeless and done drugs. I have lived a life. A life that when people look at my outer being don’t see. They see a white male that is now heavy set and assume all kinds of privileges have occurred. The reality is that I wasn’t privileged. If the past had won, I would be working in a factory, not in a medical clinic as a mental health provider. If the past had won, I may not even be typing these words because I would be in a cemetery from having committed suicide. If the past had one, I may have been in jail from killing someone for the things they put me through. I am here now though. In the present day, as a survivor not a victim.
If I allow myself to speak about these things, in the future I may be able to help other people that have survived these things. I may be able to help them heal as well. I also can allow other people in better than I currently do. I tend to keep people on the peripheral because of my trauma history. I do not let them in and do not allow them to fully know me as a person. I struggle though often with knowing who I am because of all the trauma. Knowing myself, even though I am a mental health provider, has been my biggest struggle. I have had several times in my life where I have had to recognize that things that I loved were because I was directly trying to make myself safe in horrible environments. For years, my favorite color was mint green, but it wasn’t. This was my grandmother’s favorite color. I allowed this to be my favorite color because it meant less wrath and more connection to the person that was fairly abusive to me growing up. For years, I could read what I wanted because I thought I wasn’t reading the correct things, but now I recognize I enjoy books with diverse themes and murder mysteries. I had to step back and examine myself because of my trauma to get to these realizations and I am still doing that all the time. Opening up about my history will help me to process it and put it to bed better.
“You shouldn’t share these kinds of things in an open forum or online. It is oversharing!” Thank you for telling me what you needed to tell me, but hear me at this point of my life I could care less what you think needs to live in the shadows. The reason family members were shoved into mental health hospitals to die was because we let things live in the shadows. I am not going to do that in life anymore nor should anyone else. We should drag them into the light and talk about them. It makes them less scary and helps people to feel less alone. I want anyone that has survived trauma to know, you are not alone and there are those of us that have survived and have somehow managed to thrive in the world. I also want you to know, in case no one has told you today, you are loved beyond measure. All of you, not just the parts that you may have to show to survive in this world, but even that quirky little bit that you hide away. That part of you is beautiful.
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