Today marks seven years since my car accident. Seven years of fighting for pieces of my life back and seven years of coming to terms with the hard reality of all that I have lost and overcame.
Trauma takes the settled dust of your soul and shakes it all up. The little particles now float and are visibly seen and felt against the beam of light of your inner self. Things of your past that have been buried, suppressed and ignored are all left open and exposed to deal with. We are intricate beings with layers upon layers of experiences and memories that tend to make us and sometimes break us.
In the midst of fighting for my health and body, I also had to face the hard truth of growing up in a toxic and abusive home. I worked with different counselors and a psychologist and I got to the point that my relationship with my parents could no longer exist. It wasn’t an easy decision or something that I just did or took lightly. No, I put boundaries in place and tried to have conversations and tried so many things but sometimes there essentially is nothing else you can do but to release the relationship. It has been about three and a half years since I’ve heard my parent‘s voices.
I will no longer hide under the umbrella of fear and abuse. Shoving things under the rug to keep the peace becomes exhausting and adds anxiety and stress, things that don’t bring healing for my body but added trauma. I have grown exhausted from harboring a secret that no longer serves me and has no power over me anymore.
This post is essentially for me. A way to be able to speak it out but within that, I must admit, it also is a tad bit scary too. Many of you that read this and knew me for many years may be in shock from reading all of this. The façade of perfection and what someone on the outside looking in, would have thought that my family dynamic looked or appeared close to perfect. And yet it was far from that. Growing up in a small town where chatter and gossip runs wild, doesn't make a person that has had to endure and survive hardships want to speak out their truth. The thought of tainting my family name was also a hefty weight to carry as well. The thought of people back in my hometown reading this post kind of stirred up all of the fear, which it’s a fear that makes you feel like you are being choked to death, like you are holding your breath and can’t breath. But I don’t want to be held back with fear or anxiety anymore. So with the dust swirling around and bringing everything forward, acknowledging it, seeing it for what it really is, and working through it all has and is still taking a lot of time to process. The wounds and the scars left over run deep but in order for me to move forward, I have to face it all.
I figured if I wrote it out, it would be another step in my healing process. To speak it out, in hopes that in doing so it’s like putting out a fire and will now become a lessoned burn. That the sting and the sharpness of it all will become dull and fuzzy.
I know that I am not alone here. Most people go through something traumatic or hard in their lives. I think the speaking out part is one of the most difficult things to face. The worrying of what people might think and say or the judgment that may come. Life can be complicated but also it can be beautifully challenging. The hard shapes you and how you allow it to shape you is up to you. I have fought not only for my life and future but also my husband and girls. I want there to be change in the cycle and though I'm not perfect, at least I know I'm trying my hardest to make changes and get the help and advice to make our lives healthy. So to whoever may read this and is going through your own hard battle, I challenge you to speak it out and face the hard and be the change.
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