The wavy image staring back at me

On building a bridge between my early trauma and my softness today. Who I am is not who I expected to be.

On building a bridge between my early trauma and my softness today. Who I am is not who I expected to be.

Dear readers,

I am beyond whole at this point. I am overflowing in support and spiritual peace. My serenity and strength are solidified in my personal relationships with family, my romantic partner, and friends. I’ve even started returning to weekly church pews, gathering the strength to strike up conversations as we pass the peace during service.

It’s quiet but not lonely. Peaceful but not isolated. How I got here after an adolescence and early adulthood full of trauma is a marvel in and of itself.

Sometimes I find myself twisting and turning the facts in my mind, trying to catch some new glimpse of truth in them, some small nugget of future wisdom lingering in my mind that I’d missed. Yet nothing catches my eye. I still think about how grateful I am to be alive, how thankful I am for the lessons I take with me, and how wonderful it is to finally be free.

When returning to these memories of traumas, whether by choice or through circumstance, I am able to stand unaffected and feel my way through them. I didn't think this was possible even ten years ago. I put myself through the wringer to figure out my boundaries and how to move through the world safely while treating it as unsafe.

It’s quiet but not lonely. Peaceful but not isolated. How I got here after an adolescence and early adulthood full of trauma is a marvel in and of itself.

I think back to who I was and who I needed to be to return safety to my body. I stress that I did not return to safety in my body alone; this was a group effort, a collaborative process between community, friends, and family. Binding together the broken pieces of my mind took all the energy I had left and I struggled to find autonomy.

After my early marriage failed seven years in, I became disillusioned with men as a class. I truly felt betrayed by them as I yearned for independence. It didn’t take me long to start dating once I was divorced, but I wrestled against the constraints of monogamy. The expectations of heterosexual relationships wouldn’t dawn on me for another couple of years however.

I stress that I did not return to safety in my body alone; this was a group effort, a collaborative process between community, friends, and family.

I look back on this period of self discovery with fondness. I ached for loving and being loved and I carried that out in my life. I relentlessly pursued affection with others, throwing myself into situations an early marriage had never allowed. While most of those experiences were unforgettable in a way that sunsets are, some fell short of the glory I was sure they'd hold. Still, I sought what I was sure existed in others: love and acceptance.

There was a period of time when I remembered that time with disappointment. How could I have been so reckless? To throw my heart around to anyone who would have it. I really put it through a lot for a simple taste of desire. Yet I find a reason to always hold myself accountable in place of my assailant. No matter who they were. I put my heart through so much blame and shame.

So when I witness my heart today and see this wavy reflection staring back at me I wonder: who would I be without my pain?

To bear witness to a traumatized heart and to hold one in safety are not the same thing. It’s doubly painful for a victim as they must do both in order to move towards a modicum of healing. I have made my pain visible to others only to have them create distance and harm for me right away. I have also had advocates that recognized my desire for safety in disclosure and accommodated my needs. They weren’t always held within the same person, to my shock. As a victim of multiple kinds of violence, this was gutting to me. I discovered it in real time when I tried to navigate a world that, to me, seemed new and dangerous. A world where I could be harmed at any moment for simply existing. This was in sharp contrast to the world I was raised to believe existed.

The world I believed in had heroes and men with integrity. There were adults who always did the hard thing and made the right choices. I believed that the people I grew to admire were worthy of being the object of my inspiration. That my belief in a just society and a decent world is indicative of my naivety to most people only further proves to me that we need more people to believe in it. I wish I was still that person, who believed in goodness and kindness and that men who were powerful were also gentle. I long to think of who I would be today if I had grown into a world where those were norms instead of empty promises.

If they'd been made to be broken or if I’d broken them by springing into consciousness at the wrong moment in history plagued me for most of my adolescence and early adulthood.

And so it still surprises me on these quiet and silent days, when I see my wavy reflection staring back at me in the stillness. Wondering who the shadow of that young person is look back at me? I see so much potential for them. I see a light that is always glimmering, even as so many have attempted to snuff it out. It’s the daily moments I come to meet my heart in it's breaking and raise my own hands in prayer that I am reminded of how far I’ve come since what shaped my nightmares and anxieties came to fruition so many years ago. I could close my eyes and kiss the memories and relive them scent by scent, but I let it wash over me. The grief of knowing what I would be like and the dissonance of understanding there is no other me, sit heavy on my heart.

I am blessed to be alive today and to carry these stones of grief with me.

I am able to carry the weight of who I could have been. Who I could have been and who I am are always in alignment when I am in awareness of my heart and boundaries. I carry my truths with me wherever I go. I hold them deep inside the chambers of my heart.

These memories may hold my fears but they can never hold my hopes and dreams.

With love,

Lindsay