After receiving my cPTSD diagnosis a few years ago, it took me a very long time to realize that there wasn’t a serious issue with me. that I was not defective. I had to have it drilled into me that having cPTSD didn’t mean I wasn’t coping, instead it meant as a child, I continually experienced things my mind and body weren’t equipped for.
A child doesn’t have the ability to handle complex emotions. That’s what the adults in our lives are for, but when you can’t seek the help that you so desperately needed, we end up internalizing all the feelings towards ourselves.
It’s undoing the self-blame and self-hatred that allows us to begin to heal.
My healing journey has not been easy
Healing isn’t about fully erasing the pain—it’s about finding peace within myself despite it. I have a new-found capacity to be able to handle what life throws at me because I’m doing the hard work and finding peace within myself. I will always be in survival mode, but knowing that I have managed to dig myself out of a hole I never put myself in and be able to put one foot in front of the other every single day. It tells me that I can handle things I never could have imagined.
My healing journey has been a gradual process, and it’s intimidating. When I started on this path, I had no idea what to expect or who would even show up for me. But I’ve learned that the most important person I’ll find on the other side is the best version of myself. That’s the person I’ve been searching for all along. As I go through this process, the real me is beginning to appear. Who that person truly is? I am still trying to figure him out. It’s like meeting someone for the first time and learning new boundaries, needs, wants, and what makes them happy.
The one that has surprised me the most though? My capacity to love and forgive. I’m no longer prepared to accept breadcrumbs because I believed it’s all I deserved. I now know that I deserve so much more. I deserve the same love that I am prepared to give, and that goes deep.
Taking it one day at a time.
Everything I have discovered and undone has been a lot. There are days where I still need to go into hibernation mode to process everything, but that is becoming less. I quickly learned that it’s a marathon and not a sprint. Some days I will see so much progress, and others I will feel like everything is falling apart.
I am no longer ashamed of myself. Of what happened to me. I do understand that I was not to blame, and being able to be open about it is a huge step for me. I am doing my best to go easy on myself, and I am learning to validate and acknowledge myself so I don’t need it from others.
The world my childhood constructed was not a place I belonged in anymore, and to understand that really has been liberating. I am hopeful that life has so much good in it for me to experience. And the murky waters that I have been swimming in for so long are slowly becoming less cloudy.
I feel, dare I say it?
The beginnings of happiness and long may it continue.