It was 2016 when my journey on the healing path truly began. Throughout my adult life, there have been a few times where people around me knew there was something wrong but didn’t know what and they recommended therapy. Unfortunately, I didn’t have an opportunity to get therapy until many years later.

I didn’t know about Complex PTSD or that my experiences are things called trauma. Violence and abuse was such a normal part of my life that I didn’t recognize even the most violent things like trauma. I, like everyone else, thought trauma is something that happens to someone else. These traumatic events were so common in my life, I saw them as normal. As if everyone experiences these things but I’m weak because I can’t cope with them. 

I was caught in the swing of life. I’ve heard that the flow or rhythm of life is called the pendulum and when it swings, we swing with it. The key is learning how to swing with the pendulum instead of being at the mercy of the pendulum. 

Of course, back then, I related it to “roll with the punches”. It denotes the ability to cope with constant change. I do recall when I first stepped on to the path that prepared me for my healing steps, my life was in a flux of constant change. 

The one constant I had was a place to live for a whole 15 months while I lost one job after another. One job made changes and I was let go. Another job went out of business. I was fired from another. 

This time I quit. People came and went out of my life. An acquaintance is telling me to seek counseling. Many years later my circumstances finally came together and I got a therapist. Not one who understood trauma but one who understood grief. This wasn’t very helpful but it was a start. She was friendly and all that but I only was approved for a max of 12 sessions and I needed so much more. So, we visited my swiss cheese timeline. 

By 2008, I had my final violent trauma and was left a mess. I was medicated for something I didn’t have and wasn’t being treated for what I do have which is Complex PTSD. By the time 2016 arrived, I was unable to trust my own memory and my own reality. I was questioning my sanity. 

The thing with me is that I’ve experienced every form of abuse there is. One of the most damaging parts of my trauma is the Narcissistic family abuse I endured as a scapegoat. This was the most insidious abuse I’ve experienced was as the family scapegoat.  

I went to NO CONTACT with my entire family in 2016. I couldn’t heal any of my past, present, or future trauma until I got out of that abusive and toxic family cult that was totally denying my life experience. I found another therapist but she didn’t understand trauma-related disorders either but because I am determined to make sense of the senseless, I made a little progress. I learned to trust my own memories and my own reality. I learned how to discern between what should be dismissed and what should be considered. 

There was this one therapist who was a total detriment. Yet again, another therapist who didn’t understand trauma-related disorders. By this time I’m having a breakdown. My therapist moved, my psychiatrist retired and my medical doctor got promoted out of being my doctor. My thyroid was hyperthyroid on top of it all, I had to get back on track.

With the help of a loved one, I found a great therapist who totally understands PTSD and I was able to get a Psychiatrist who understands the effects of trauma. Since I’ve started with this therapist a couple of years ago, I’ve made progress. Enough progress to be hopeful that one day I will have my life back. 

Every day is a challenge with Complex PTSD. Between the emotion dysregulation, flashbacks, anxiety, and insomnia, I feel like my life is an obstacle course loaded with different levels of bombs scattered all through it. I never know where they are or how big the explosion will be.

What drives me forward toward my goals in therapy and my overall healing agenda is that I don’t have much of a choice. My choice is either to be constantly on a roller coaster through a life of chaos or I can learn how to manage all these symptoms so that I can get back to some sense of normalcy in my life. So that I can find a sense of what is normal. 

As I work on my goals in healing, I gain more understanding surrounding my traumas, understanding people, and most of all, understanding myself and recognizing that traits that I was told were bad are actually my strengths.

I’ve come to love who I am as I’ve learned how to define who and what I am. I’m learning how to stand up for myself and how to enforce those much-needed boundaries. 

As I progressed on my healing journey, I took a course on Domestic Violence and got my certificate as a Domestic Violence Advocate. That was a big step in my healing journey as it helped me to better understand the effects of trauma and what happened to me and why I am affected by the violence I witnessed happening to others. 

Trauma isn’t pretty. It isn’t nice. It isn’t a pleasant topic. The reason to read the stories of trauma survivors is to understand human nature. More importantly, what happened to the one you love that caused them to behave this way or to react this way or whatever behavior you are trying to understand. That’s one of the reasons to read these stories. 

When you want to know how someone gets CPTSD or PTSD or you just want to understand what it’s like. That’s one of the reasons to read my stories. If you need to hear the stories of others so that you know you are not alone. That’s one of the reasons to read these stories. But be careful not to read these stories if you are still easily triggered because other people’s trauma stories can retraumatize you. But there came a point in my life when I needed to read the stories of other people so that I could know that I’m not so different after all. 

In telling my stories, I’m not trying to gain your sympathy, or worse, your pitty. I just want the trauma’s that were kept as the family secret to be exposed for the sake of my healing. I’m writing for the loved ones of survivors so they might be able to understand what role trauma plays in the life of human beings and how trauma becomes traumatic.

I’ve learned through my own experience that sometimes adversity becomes trauma because another coexisting trauma is happening at the same time. Also, Traumas don’t necessarily cause any form of PTSD just because they happen. They become traumatic when a child or adult can’t work through events in a healthy way. 

For example, I have a loved one who experienced a one-time sexual abuse. The reaction from his mother and the adults around him was a healthy response and he was not traumatized by the event. 

No one tried to silence him, no one tried to hide the abuse. In fact, the message he got that day was that it was wrong of the man to do that and my loved one was protected. Plus his mother was a good mother who was single but strong. My loved one is able to form healthy attachments and is capable of a long term relationship. 

That story is my light in the storm. It’s like a beacon directing me toward what is healthy. It is through redefining that twisted version of my traumas into what it is in factual reality that has been the most empowering.

I’ve heard it said over and over from many different sources that children are resilient. They tend to be but it’s because we are human beings and it is human nature to survive. I may seem negative or that my outlook on life or the world is negative. How I see it, with the reality I survived, the world is a negative place and I will survive as long as I can. I want you to survive too. I can’t trust anyone but I don’t want to be alone. 

I am a fighter and I will survive.