Healing from trauma is not easy. It is a daily struggle that can make you feel intensely alone and lonely. Because so few understand what you are going through. As with Fibromyalgia, and the sacrifices it forces you to make, only those who live(d) the same experience are able to grasp your reality, if only to some extent.
It was my dear friend Birgit who first came up with the hashtag "little boat of healing", after I had mentioned it in one of my poems on Instagram. Since then I posted several very personal pictures on Instagram, and inevitably, I got judged for being too sensitive, too negative, too dark. I stepped away from social media then, wondering if I should continue. My primary goal for the posting was trying to help others in similar predicaments. I know I'm not the only one dealing with this kind of trauma. Instagram-friends acknowledged that, stating it is my account, and I decided what content comes on it. But after I threw myself into my pit of darkness, a response consciously triggered by my ex who is suddenly being the best dad ever and takes my son out to do all sorts of activities he knows I am unable to do, I stepped away again. I needed time to reflect on what is going on. Inside. My mind often feels too full to function correctly, I get lost in my own thinking. I now part of this is caused immense exhaustion of being wary all the time, of carrying the Fibromyalgia pain, of being at constant war with myself. I had just started a Ginger Kitty Sketch theme on #littleboatofhealing, raw sketches only, but I do feel the need to draw more elaborately, freely. Because as the posting I did on Instagram did help me find some order in chaos, so too does my drawing. To be able to put thoughts onto paper in the form of images that mean something to me as well as other people, is a great asset I am pretty proud of. And I do not pride myself on something easily. As a matter of fact, that is one of the side paths I know I need to walk, while trodding on that big path of healing.
✸ As Tara Brach asks in one of her guided RAIN meditations: What would happen if you did not talk to yourself like that? What would happen if you let those thoughts go, what kind of person would you be?
I am seeing more patterns of trauma response daily now. The way I try to compensate for my ex's erratic behaviour towards our child, so similar to how I tried compensating towards my mother for my brother's wickedness. The blaming myself after I fell into yet another trap of my ex's, the way I always blame myself after something went wrong, even if I had nothing to do with it. The shutting down completely when the Darkness arrives and the desire to cut loose every bond I still have, so similar to how I used to confine myself to my room, unable of any kindness towards myself or the world. The blaming of others for the way I feel, when in fact a lot of my misery is kept alive by myself. As Tara Brach asks in one of her guided RAIN meditations: What would happen if you did not talk to yourself like that? What would happen if you let those thoughts go, what kind of person would you be? I reflect on that a lot, both in my own RAIN meditations as throughout the day. I often think, regardless, I would be a much kinder and nicer person had the trauma never happened. If my mother had been able to muster up her own courage to seek healing of her own. Instead she turned my family against me and blamed me for being so miserable. Amongst the beatings and all the other psychological warfare, that is. But it would be easy to blame her, and it would not help me to step out of the trance of traumatic response, which is why I need to work on me.
✸ I had just started a Ginger Kitty Sketch theme on #littleboatofhealing, raw sketches only, but I do feel the need to draw more elaborately, freely.
Ginger Kitty Sketch will surely help me. And I will, eventually, return on Instagram, but just not now. I really need to get myself back on the road to healing again, and that requires focus on myself. Not in a selfish way but in a kind and caring manner, so that my self can grow while healing from those cracks and dents caused by the past. I am not naive, I know I will never heal completely and the scars will ache and itch from time to time. But to be able to recognise the dynamics, to see the patterns, and to acknowledge my own responses to situations - without judging them and without judging me - is essential. Right now, this self of mine is far too fragile, too susceptible to what others think I should be doing. I lost my self for a long time, and now that I found it again, I will not risk losing that connection. I will still get into trance, I will make mistakes and get overwhelmed by the Fears and the Darkness. It is an inevitable truth. But with each day passing I am confident I will grow to see those experiences as opportunities to grow from. It is a long, winding road that will continue throughout the rest of my living days. But now I know, deep in my heart, that I will not have to walk it alone.
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