I wrote an open letter to my trauma anniversaries. I’ve done a lot of growing and inner work in the last year. Thankfully, I am a better and stronger person now.
To my trauma anniversaries,
Each month of every year, I am paralyzed by you. The anniversaries have stacked up quite a bit over the last thirty years. Every few weeks, a new anniversary creeps from its hiding place in my mind, down my central nervous system, and has life breathed into it again. Many times, I don’t know what it is that has me anxious, angry, and depressed until I look at a calendar.
When I put two and two together, all that comes out is, “Oh.”
I resent you. Each and every anniversary temporarily robs me of the peace that I’ve worked so hard to grow. My happiness is stolen briefly while I try to understand why I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach when nothing bad is going on in my life.
You won’t like this, but I’ve learned how to deal with you. I don’t want my contentment and joy stolen by memories that can’t harm me anymore. The physical and emotional pain that accompanies each thought I’ve tried to forget has no power over me.
I learned to forgive. I forgive each man and woman that came into my life, looking to do harm instead of good. They are not a part of my life anymore. The things they did are not things I want to hold onto anymore. I learned to forgive myself. I am an imperfect person that has learned and grown more in the last year than I think I have my whole life. Grace and patience have allowed me to see that everyone has problems. We were all doing our best whether we did good or bad to each other.
I learned to take care of myself, instead of falling prey to alcohol and other things that make the pain subside briefly. Giving myself healthy means of coping with all of the feelings that you bring up has changed my life completely. I am happier when I hear myself actively choose to go for a walk or breathe instead of looking for medications or other means of shutting you out.
I learned to stop listening when you put your hands on my shoulders and tell me all the ways that I’m inadequate or worthless. I am not you. I am more than what has happened to me. It’s taken me until my thirties to understand that fact. You are not me, and I am not you.
I learned to accept that you happened to me. I can’t change that my fiancé left me without telling me what was wrong or why. I can’t change the amount of sexual and physical abuse I’ve endured since I was a little girl. I can’t change that I was almost murdered by a psychopath. I accept that. What I can do, is take what I’ve learned from each of those situations and move forward to continue being a better human being than any of the people that I encountered. And I can keep myself away from people like that in the future.
I learned that I will never have answers to: Why did this happen to me? Now, I no longer need the answers. I have faith in myself that I will overcome all of these traumas to live a happy healthy life. The answers to my pain are happiness and fulfillment in helping others with their grief and suffering.
I learned to let go. The hardest thing to let go of was the man I thought was the love of my life. He’s not the person that I thought he was. Waiting, expecting, or hoping for him to become the person I thought he was would only have kept me miserable, angry, and confused, and I let go of him to make way for the person that I deserve. That person is out there somewhere, and I look forward to the day that we cross paths. Until then, I won’t dwell on what was in order to keep working on who I am and who I want to be.
I learned not to conceal the emotions as they came up. You always had power over me because I tried so hard to hide them. Instead, I walk hand in hand with whatever comes up. Shame, embarrassment, sadness, and anger are all familiar friends now. We know each other well, and they walk with me for a while until they pass. I’m not afraid of them anymore. They are what they are, and then they go away.
I learned that a healing journey is not linear. I had some very good days and very bad days. There were times that I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened and begging whatever deity was listening to bring me peace and help me understand why this happened with tears running down my face. There were days that I willed my heart to stop beating because I couldn’t handle all of the things I’d been through. I asked for guidance to understand why someone that knew my every trauma and promised to never hurt me, did the exact opposite, and hurt me worse than anyone had before. No one had answers. No one knew. The way that I cried ‘til I couldn’t breathe and dry heaved for months after that and tried everything to stop that pain was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
Slowly, it lessened. I would have days where I could laugh and didn’t think about the pain in my chest. Other days, I couldn’t move and was completely incapacitated by it. Even now, when I have accepted what happened, I have moments where it hits me squarely in the chest again. I know how to handle those moments now. With a deep breath and saying out loud, “Feel it, and let it pass. You’re going to be okay.”
You have no power over me anymore. You may worm your way out of my mind and into the world, but I have built and grown a defense of self-care and happiness to fight you. I don’t need to keep track of what day it is. I don’t have to prepare for these days with boxes of tissues and extra pillows in my bed. I can stand up and continue my day even with you in the back of my mind which is something I was not capable of last year. I am stronger now, and I know exactly what I deserve.
That leads to the last things I’ve learned. Pride and gratitude. I am so proud of myself for every step of the journey that I’ve walked since last year. I am grateful for all the wonderful people that I’ve met online and in real life. I am thankful that those that harmed me are no longer a part of my life and will never be again. And I am happy that you will never grasp my shoulders and control me again.
I am sure of all of the things that you made me doubt. Real love will find me. I am beautiful and strong. I will turn all my pain into purpose. I will have a good life. And I am worthy.
I am not you anymore, and you are no longer me.
-Iris
Asking for Help
Healing Journey – Part 2
7 Ways to Help a Friend in Need
Understanding and ending my toxic cycle
Wow, thank you for sharing this. Such a personal and powerful post. Incredible!
Thank you!
I must say that reading the experiences and thoughts of others, in this case yours, I can reflect on mine and feel less alone. You have been and if strong, it’s nice to support each other!
♥️♥️♥️
This is really lovely and powerful. Truly, time is the healer of all wounds, but when we are walking through it, it’s so difficult to imagine it lessening… Proud of you girl!
Time and a whole lot of work!
Aw! I am so sorry you had to go through that, but what a way to make it into a triumph. Learning to forgive is hard but so necessary!
Amen. But in doing so, I feel better than ever. I’m better than fine and so ready for a better future! ?
Its a great thing that you are trying to let go of all the things happened to you. Very nicely expressed!
I think I’m getting pretty successful at it, too. It’s taken a lot of reading, writing, crying, and breathing, but I made it! I didn’t think I’d ever feel this happy again, but here I am!
I love the positive message of this post – we can overcome difficult events. You are strong and courageous, and soon even the anniversaries won’t trip you up.
I made a promise to myself to stop letting the past torture me. It’s working out so far!
Powerful! Thank you for sharing Sis!
Thank you. ❤️
It is amazing how we can truly grow from our experiences. Thank you for sharing.
Yes, it is! I have come so far in the last year, it’s insane!
I’m so glad to hear that you’re not going to let the past hurt you anymore! It is the most freeing thing you can do with your life!
Kileen
cute & little
It really is, thank you!
You are so strong! Isn’t it amazing how being there for people now going through the same past pains is healing?! I love your strong words!
Thank you! And yes, it’s strange how much it helps to help others.
Learning and growing from your trauma is certainly not easy but it sounds like you are making the best of it and doing what you can. You also don’t need to give meaning to these anniversaries.
I am! It’s so empowering.
There is so much strength in this post. I can tell that you’ve learned so much over the past year and that you’ve taken what you’ve learned and really applied it to your life in the most positive ways possible. I don’t know you outside of this blog, but I’m proud of you for the steps you’ve taken to get to where you are now. It takes SO much endurance and power to work through something like this – and look at you now. You should certainly be proud of yourself!
It is beautiful! And how important it is to learn to forgive though traumas.
Thank you. I realized I held on to a lot of rage over the years because I hadn’t forgiven anyone in my past. And I think I hadn’t forgiven any of them because no one got punished or held accountable for what they did to me. I was the only person that got hurt and had to deal with the consequences.
Your last sentence in this post is my favorite. Where you talked about being proud of yourself, because you should be! You should absolutely be proud of everything that you’ve overcome and accomplished. I am always amazed and inspired by your strength and courage every time I read your blog, and this was certainly no exception. Forgiveness and embracing the emotions as they come up is not easy either. So many people do exactly what you’ve fought not to do, and that is turn to substance abuse to silence everything. You inspire me, and I hope you do others as well.
Thank you, Erica. It’s been a long road, and the journey is not over, but I’m happy to be on it.
This was beautifully written, something that I think each trauma survivor could benefit from reading. I know that I did. It was the reminder that I needed that this journey isn’t always going to be straight forward and easy. There are bumps in the road, challenges and difficulties along the way. The only way to overcome it and return to enjoying our lives (as we should be) is to keep pushing forward while taking care of ourselves along the way. It was also a reminder that taking a ‘day off’ to focus on selfcare isn’t a lack of moving forward. It’s a necessary part of the journey.
Thank you! The road to healing sure isn’t the yellow brick road in the Wizard of Oz. It’s the tornado.
It is a great and very deep reflection. thank you for sharing your journey with us
You’re very welcome