I have been doing a lot of soul-searching lately. Looking at my life over the years and where I am today.

I’ve really tried not to play victim or look at my life as if I was dealt a bad hand. I do, however, see what trauma has cost me, what it has done to my brain, and how my defenses have kept my life small. I can’t even say I get glimpses of how my life could have been because I don’t know what it could have been if not for trauma. As trauma is all I have ever known. But I do wonder sometimes.

I’ve learned that amongst all the chaos that has taken place, the best you can do is take your hurt and make someone else’s life a bit better because of it, and I strive to do that every day. I really think I am one of the most empathetic people you will meet. My capacity to understand adversity transcends the average person, and that’s not being conceited. I simply have lived through and seen so much that I can look at life differently and with kindness.

Always Learning And Adapting

As I have worked on myself this past year, I can see so much growth and direction. I feel a much stronger urgency to be sincere with what I want and need in life, and I am consciously choosing to be open to change. I am also looking at my need for attachments and realizing that I can’t control everything. That it’s not sustainable. I will never have a what will be attitude, but I am seeing a lot of the attachments I had were unhealthy.

The work to heal my attachment trauma has not gone unnoticed.

Being loved by others is hard when you don’t feel safe in your body to experience it, and the lack of belief that you can in fact be loved is something I always had trouble with. I was always waiting for the shoe to drop so I could get validation that I was right all along. But to finally feel that you can be loved is something I cannot articulate. It simply feels like a light switch being turned on and you can finally see in a pitch black room you have been in all this time.

It’s taken time and started with small gestures of treating myself with the care and patience I was never shown. Healing the attachment wounds is a process and you have to prepare yourself for setbacks as well as accomplishments. It’s important to be mindful and remember that those accomplishments often come in unexpected ways, so it’s essential to celebrate even the smallest victories along the way. By nurturing self-compassion and understanding, I’m gradually building a stronger foundation for healthier relationships in the future.

The Future Looks Bright

I know that any future connections will flourish as I continue to learn to embrace vulnerability and communicate my needs openly. This newfound strength and realization not only enrich my interactions but also deepen my sense of self-worth, allowing me to thrive in every aspect of my life.

It’s truly been eye-opening for me as I have worked on who I am and what it is I want minus trauma and cPTSD. The stillness I am experiencing is very real and does take some getting used to because having lived in survival mode for so long and now to find small pockets of peace I have always craved is both liberating and daunting.

The path that I have been walking, while fraught with challenges and moments where I wanted to throw all my hard work away, has been a testament to my resilience and self-growth. You really don’t know how strong you can be until you have to be. I’ve faced many demons and had a lot of tough love, but it’s all been essential for me to get to where I am now.

Healing isn’t easy, and it is by no means pretty. To begin healing takes courage. To continue healing takes patience and strength, and to see all that hard work put you in a place that you always dreamed to be in but never knew it was possible? That right there is magical, and I am beginning to believe in happy endings.

Healing is worth it. It’s leading me to a version of myself I’ve never met before. A stronger, kinder, and more resilient version. Someone that I can really be proud of.